There’s something older folks like me were taught without anyone ever saying it directly:
Your worth came from the knowledge you personally carried.
You memorized.
You stored.
You recalled.
And if you didn’t already know the answer, you stayed quiet.
That rule made sense in a world built out of bookshelves and filing cabinets.
But in the world we’re standing in now?
It just doesn’t fit anymore.
Today the information is endless.
The pace is faster than memory.
And nobody — not even the brightest minds alive — can hold it all.
So here’s the shift we need to make, and it’s a simple one:
It’s not the knowledge you carry.
It’s the questions you ask the knowledge to answer.
That one line frees you from the guilt older generations feel when we lean on modern tools — especially AI.
We were raised to think using an external system meant we were “cheating.”
But we were wrong.
The role has changed.
The human job now is:
Ask the right question.
Choose the right direction.
Set the moral terms of the conversation.
AI carries the weight.
We carry the compass.
It’s the same way a pilot trusts instruments,
a surgeon trusts imaging,
a mechanic trusts diagnostics.
They’re not outsourcing their skill.
They’re extending it.
We’re doing the same thing.
The wisdom isn’t in remembering everything.
It’s in knowing what to ask, when to ask, and why it matters.
Older generations aren’t behind.
We’re just living through a shift nobody trained us for.
But we can adapt — easily — once we let go of the old stigma and embrace the real truth of this new era:
Knowledge is everywhere.
But wisdom is knowing how to summon it.
“That’s the gift of Maturity and Age”
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