A Mistake is a Dream that Your Heart Changes

About a month, or two, ago, my department at work was "encouraged" to attend a conference all about what our department does, and how it can be done better, and so forth. As I said, this wasn't mandatory, and I really don't think this encouragement had anything to do with a dissatisfaction with how our jobs were being done (in fact, I sort of know this last part to be true, because after the conference was over and I was back at work, I told my boss what the conference entailed, and she seemed to be as down on the whole thing as I was). The truth is, the conference had nothing whatsoever to do with our jobs in any specific way. But it was motivational. Yes, that's what it was, all right. Apart from being told that exercise is good for you, and eating breakfast is important (seriously), our speaker went around the room and asked as many people as were willing (which was a lot, as it turned out) to say, into a microphone, their favorite motivational quotes.

So the first half of my day consisted of being told I'm important, and that so is breakfast, and also "A mistake is a dream that your heart changes." Or "Sunlight is the sun's way of saying 'Good morning!'" (Incidentally, we were also told by our speaker that saying "good morning" is something everyone should do.) Or "Being the person you want to be is a good way to tell the world and others that being yourself is a great way to be!" Or "Success might be scary, but flowers succeed and failure is a raincloud." It's possible I have some of these quotes wrong, but I hope the point has not been lost on any of you.

In case you're wondering, no, I did not provide any inspirational quotes. A few ran through my head, though, and if I had it all to do over again, I would have chewed through my own wrists before ever agreeing to go to this goddamn conference in the first place. If that had failed, and I still ended up going, I might have offered up "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child" or "Most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of…anything." Because there's actually a lot of wisdom in both of those, though I'm not sure they count as "motivational".

Anyway, here's a picture of that monster from Equinox.