Surfer, you might have heard of an 18th century bengali educationist called Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishwar_Chandra_Vidyasagar
there is a very amusing incident from his life that might be instructive to us.
once, Vidyasagar, already a very famous personality by then, was visiting some small town. He was received by a coterie of noted personalities from the town one of whom remarked that so-and-so from the town was running a raging villification campaign against him.
Vidyasagar coolly replied, "Why ? I don't remember I've ever done anything good for that person"
the bottomline is, people can forgive you for being bad to them but they can never forgive you for being good to them.
