Author’s Note
My next piece is not a story, but a reflection I felt deeply compelled to write.
Now that I’ve reached the age my parents were when they needed more help, I can’t help but admit how right they were about so many things they once tried to tell me.
“I get it. I understand.”
I find myself saying this often now—and I mean it.
When I look in the mirror, I sometimes see my mother’s face looking back at me. And with that reflection comes the realization of how much I once overlooked—about her, about my father, and about how often I stopped truly listening to them.
What goes around comes around. The cycle continues.
I no longer have to imagine how my parents may have felt—unseen, unheard, or quietly dismissed—despite the lives they lived, and the lessons they carried and tried to pass on. I know that as parents, we have all experienced those same feelings with our own children.
“Wisdom Has No Expiration Date” is not a complaint, but an invitation—to every generation—to pause, to listen, and to understand anyone, at any age, who comes forward to share a story, a thought, an idea, or simply a moment of connection.
It is about human connection—A reminder of our shared humanity—and a call to offer sensitivity, compassion, and kindness to one another.
©2025 Myrna Urmanita. All Rights Reserved.
Wisdom Has No Expiration Date
Having lived as long as I have, I belong to the older generation. We are the Baby Boomers, born 1946 - 1964. Our parents are the Greatest Generation, born 1901-1927, and the Silent Generation, born 1928 - 1945.
We are the children who have lived through an extraordinary spectrum of personal, cultural, and historical changes. And yet, we are also the generations that have earned a quiet frustration: watching younger generations assume we have little or nothing to offer to the problems and issues facing the world today.
Never mind that we were the generations who carried responsibility, loss, reinvention, failure, recovery, love, and survival. We are the children whose parents lived through the Great Depression, fought in WWII, and some of us are the children of parents from the post-WWII baby boom.
We are the generations who lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War and Space Race, political turmoil and assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Liberation movement, the gay rights movement, the environmental movement, the counterculture/hippie movement, the Vietnam War, Middle Eastern conflicts, the Persian Gulf War, and early post-9/11 operations, the rise of the Internet, and the digital revolution.
And still, our words are dismissed for carrying no weight or value. We become unseen in a world obsessed with speed, disposability, and a more-is-better mentality.
But, here is the hushed reality they are missing:
Technology changes.
Language changes.
Platforms change.
Fear, ambition, grief, hope, ego, love, and resilience do not.
The only currency with lasting value is human connection. Leadership and success have always been about relationships—about building bonds grounded in sensitivity, compassion, kindness, and humanity.
We are the generations who do not need to shout or correct, but stand firmly in our lived reality. There is depth beneath our storytelling—depth that only time can create.
We are not seeking validation. This is about legacy. Our storytelling is not about ego or praise; it is about planting seeds. Seeds for those who will one day say, "Now I get it. I understand."
And just as the cycle repeated itself with us, it will repeat with generations that follow.
We are not late, outdated, or irrelevant. We are the generations that have been there, done that, and are arriving now with power and authority that are not fabricated, but in real-time.
We don't just want to be heard.
We want to be felt.
And feelings are what endure.
I am not alone in this. You are not alone. Together, we are not disappearing into the background.
We're leaving a light behind.
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Some things that are learned are timeless — what comes next asks me to notice more.
