If you have not seen the movie Seven, this post contains spoilers for the movie.
In the ending of the movie Seven, the killer played by Kevin spacey was talking, or psyching, the detective played by brad Pitt, about the last of the two deadly sins, envy and wrath, that he had committed. Envy was when he saw the perfect couple of the detective and his wife played by Gwyneth paltrow. Wrath is when he say the detective will do to him what he committed because of his enviousness. Which actually happened since the killer killed the wife and sent the wife's head to the meeting. The detective just lost it and killed the killer thus fulfilling the final sin, wrath.
When I saw this scene, I totally got the killer's motivation. Myself, I get a bit envious and angry when I see the mofos who f'ed me up during my school/college years, doing well nowadays. Facebook is such a bad envy tool. Not all the time, but the anger is there.
So what stops be from being the badass, is the feeling of gratitude, and believe in what goes around comes around eventually.
But still, there are those dark times ...