I'm sure that there have been times in your life when you have done things that you might have considered insignificant, but to others was deemed as something great and worthy of eternal gratitude. It's just hard to explain people's reations to our actions. How often meaning is taken when none was offered.
Then, on the other side, how often you have done things with great care and consideration only to have them ignored or belittled by those for whom the actions were intended. How often meaning offered is not taken.
You might think that weighing the two it might give balance to a persons life, however this is not the case. The efforts ignored, belittled or forgotten far outweigh whatever good we may have felt for those gratitudes.
Perhaps the reason for this is that the people who share the greatest gratitude are usually people who are acquaintances, friends or people we hardly know at all, and the people who have the least gratitude are the people who are closest to us, family, lovers or very best friends.
And the truth is that we are often hurt most by the people we love the most. Ironic, eh?