Now, Was and Gonna Be

I was having a discussion with some radio buds from the past on Facebook over the last couple days. It reminded me of the Andy Bernard quote from The Office finale:

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in ‘the good old days’, before you’ve actually left them.”

That got me thinking more and I remembered a fantastic quote from the great Sid Caesar that I wanted to share:

“There’s a now, a was, and a gonna be. Now is now, and after now is a was. And what comes after the was is a gonna be. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s gonna happen as soon as the now is over. But if you have a good now, you’re bound to have a good was and a good gonna be. But after the bad now comes a bad was. But if you have a bad now and dwell on it, you’re going to have a bad gonna be and you’re going to have a bad cycle.

If you learn from the bad was, you can turn the bad gonna be into a good gonna be. The only way you can change the cycle is after the was. If you carry the bad wases around with you, they get heavy and become should’a could’as – I should’a done this, I could’a done that.

If you learn from the was, you’ll have a great now; you won’t repeat the same mistakes. It will bring you to a good now, which changes the cycle to a good was, and a good gonna be. You need to learn from the wases. It’s all about changing your attitude.” – Sid Caesar