The Third Quarter: Why This Might Be the Most Important Time of Our Lives

Maybe it’s our great awakening — the season when everything we’ve learned finally finds its purpose.

The Awakening of the Third Quarter

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of listening to Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Roméo Dallaire speak at the Sid Williams Theatre here in Comox, BC. If you’ve ever heard him, you’ll know what I mean when I say his words don’t just inform — they pierce.

For those unfamiliar, Dallaire is a retired Canadian general, humanitarian, and peacekeeper whose leadership during the Rwandan genocide left indelible marks — both on the world and on his own soul. He has since dedicated his life to preventing mass atrocities, advocating for child soldiers, and reimagining what ethical leadership looks like in an increasingly complex world.

Listening to him that night, I was struck by his ability to name the revolutionary time we’re living through — a moment where technology, climate, and morality collide, and where our youngest generations, as he put it, are “the catalysts of an enormous shift.”

As he spoke, I couldn’t help but think about where I am in my own life — my third quarter, as I like to call it. That liminal space in our 50s and 60s when the horizon feels shorter, but somehow the call feels louder.

And I realized something profound: this might be the most important time of our lives — not to step back, but to step forward.

From Accumulation to Activation

In our younger years, we were builders — of careers, families, reputations, experiences, friendships.

Now, we are integrators — we bring coherence, context, and conscience to a world that feels increasingly chaotic and morally challenged to know where the lines are. As I wrote recently, my grandparents’ generation moved from incompetence to mastery — their hardships were physical, but their wisdom grew with age. Our generation is experiencing the opposite: mastery to confusion, as technology accelerates faster than we can adapt

And yet, there is an opportunity here: to transform this disorientation into wisdom, humility, and collaboration. We are the bridge generation — standing between a world that once felt certain and a world that is remaking itself in real time.

The younger generations — the Generation Without Borders, as he calls them — are growing up global. They see everything, feel everything, and are maturing faster than we ever did.

Photo: Antarctica many moons ago…

A Revolutionary Moment

Dallaire said something that has stayed with me: “This is the first time in human history we can actually speak of humanity in real time.” The younger generations — the Generation Without Borders, as he calls them — are growing up global. They see everything, feel everything, and are maturing faster than we ever did.

But they’re also overwhelmed — by information, by climate anxiety, by systems that were built for another century. They need elders who don’t retreat in irrelevance, but lean in as guides, mentors, and witnesses. We cannot hand them a broken world and expect them to fix it alone. We need each other.

Our role now is to show up — with steadiness, context, and moral clarity.

What We Still Hold That Matters

We carry something our youth need: perspective — the long arc of consequence and repair. We remember a time before the internet, before algorithms shaped identity, before every conversation was recorded. We know the value of embodied presence, of listening without distraction, of silence.

Dallaire warns that “rank will not count anymore.” The hierarchies we built — political, corporate, even social — are dissolving.But what will still matter is wisdom grounded in lived experience. Our stories, our empathy, our sense of community, our earned humility — these are the new currencies of leadership.

Intergenerational Collaboration: The New Frontier

The future depends on our ability to work with, not talk over, younger generations. To replace authority with authenticity. To move from “command and control” to “connect and collaborate.”

“Our youth are the catalysts of this enormous shift,” Dallaire said, “but we must offer them stable ground to stand on.” That means creating intergenerational learning spaces — where experience meets experimentation, where patience meets urgency.

It means saying: Teach me your tools, and I’ll teach you my stories. We don’t have to compete with AI — we have to humanize it. We don’t need to dominate progress — we need to give it meaning.

✈️ Why Travel Still Changes Us

If there’s one teacher that transcends age, it’s travel.

Every expedition I’ve led or been part of— whether in Antarctica, Africa, Patagonia, Greenland, Svalbard, or the Canadian Arctic — has reminded me that awe is the antidote to apathy.

Travel strips us back to what’s essential. It dissolves titles, equalizes generations, and reminds us how small and extraordinary we really are. When we travel — truly travel, with curiosity and humility — we practice seeing with new eyes and a beginners mind.

And that’s what this third quarter is really about: seeing ourselves, and our world, differently. “The older I get,” I’ve realized, “the more I want to belong to something that outlives me.”

The Call of Our Time

This is not the time to fade quietly into comfort. No, no, no.

It’s the time to scale up — to grab the world by the tail and use the wisdom, grit, and perspective we’ve earned to make meaning out of chaos. We can’t go back to the world our parents knew. You could, perhaps temporarily, as I did at Bamsebu for 19 months.

But we can help shape the one our children will inherit. The world doesn’t need more noise. It needs more nuance. It doesn’t need more speed. It needs more stillness. It doesn’t need more youth energy alone. It needs the wisdom of age walking beside it. So maybe this third quarter isn’t decline at all.

Maybe it’s our great awakening — the season when everything we’ve learned finally finds its purpose.

** If this story resonates, please forward it to someone in their own “third quarter” — we all need to remember how vital we still are.

‍ ‍ Sunset- Antarctica

** Roméo Dallaire’s latest book

** Is the top of the world calling you? Click here

** Is the bottom of the world calling you? Click here