Source Of Problem Provides Perspective

I encountered a problem yesterday. This is interesting to me only because the source of the problem provided me perspective that my problem wasn’t significant in the slightest. As much as I hate perspective since my problems are at least problems for me, I got a laugh out of the situation.

The whole thing arose out of me reading All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I’d gone looking for a free ebook for this and had a little difficulty finding one. Eventually, though, I did find a poorly configured pdf copy and downloaded it to my Kindle. Then I started reading.

The problem was encountered about 40% of the way through the book. I was reading in the bathtub, in the middle of an intense battle scene. I got to the end of a page and hit the button for the next page. It was blank. Figuring that there was just a blank page, I hit the page forward button again. That was blank as well. I kept hitting the button. The entire rest of the pdf was blank.

This was quite disruptive. I was in the middle of reading and suddenly the rest of the book was missing. I had to get out of the bathtub, dry off and get dressed, and go find a different pdf copy. I did, and eventually I kept reading. However, it was an annoyance and wasn’t as relaxing a read as I’d been hoping.

However, as I thought about it later, All Quiet on the Western Front wasn’t exactly the book to be reading when feeling sorry for myself when the ebook I was reading cut out in the middle. After all, All Quiet on the Western Front details the horror of trench warfare in WWI. Ebook problems pale a bit compared to that. Though significant to me, my problem wasn’t significant in the least.

I’ll have to make sure to ding All Quiet on the Western Front for that in my review. I’ll teach that book to provide me perspective.