We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time.

Buchwald skewers the reflex to romanticize the past by treating nostalgia as a self-inflicted delay in living. The joke-like imperative—“pretend today is yesterday”—turns the nostalgic habit on itself: if people insist on valuing experiences only once they are safely in the past, they can simulate that distance and enjoy the present now. The line also reflects Buchwald’s broader satirical stance toward fashionable cultural moods and generational lament. Beneath the humor is a practical ethic: happiness is often postponed by comparison, and the cure is to grant “today” the same sentimental permission we reserve for “yesterday.”