My aunt is infamous around our family for having certain sayings and proverbs for specific situations. One of her most notorious snippets is her saying:

“It either will or it won’t”.

She is known to say this in times of complaining, uncertainty, or fear of future events. My sister, my informant, specifically remembers many times in which our aunt would say that quote to her. My sister admitted that she is a “complainer” and that she finds solace in talking about her problems out of her inability to cope with uncertainty of the future because of her perfectionist tendencies. “I remember that I would be complaining about school, assignments, thinking I might get a bad grade on a test” she said, and “Aunt Merrilee would always say ‘you either will or you won’t’ or ‘it either will or it won’t’”. It always bothered her at the time, says my sister, because it seemed a rude approach that did not truly fix the problem. But as she has grown up, she realized the truth in the quote. She told me that she sees it as our aunt’s way of saying that there is nothing you can do about it now. The event is already over. The test is already taken. There is no good that can come about by sitting around wallowing in it when it really won’t change anything. It’s a quote that both my sister and I have taken to heart, and I believe it has saved us from a lot of unnecessary negativity.

“I’ll be telling it to my kids when they’re growing up” says my sister. I smiled when she said that, seeing that this particular piece of folklore will live on for following generations.

I personally believe that this quote is a good piece of life advice that was likely created in many different areas and families across the nation, if not the globe. It is a very simple, logical explanation to issues and hardships. I would guess that it is more widely used among people with short tempers or those that don’t like to complain themselves. I believe it is a very logical explanation and a useful piece of folklore.