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Spite drove him for thirty years
Doug Leone arrived from Italy unable to speak English, and in high school he was ridiculed in the classroom and called pasta because he was an immigrant.
In high school and college he worked at a country club that kept its yachts in the water and its pool alongside. At sixteen and seventeen he was crawling through sailboats, running wires, and sweating through overtime while kids his age lifeguarded, talked to girls, and had the times of their lives. He told himself he would get them all later, and he did.
The need to get them back ended somewhere around fifty, after a good thirty years. By then he saw it as a weakness and a false narrative, since those were not bad kids.
Why does resentment drive some people so hard?
Psychologist Leon Festinger proposed in 1954 that people judge themselves by comparing against others. A gap between where someone stands and where a visible peer stands can produce a lasting urge to close it. When the comparison group is people who seem to have everything handed to them, the urge can turn into a motive that outlasts the original situation.
How does that kind of drive fade with age?
Laura Carstensen of Stanford proposed socioemotional selectivity theory in the 1990s. It holds that as people sense their remaining time is limited, they shift their goals toward emotional meaning and close relationships. Her studies across age groups found older adults tend to focus more on positive information and on a smaller circle of people they value.
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