FOURTH QUARTER: A SUMMARY
Discerning people regularly seek out fact based, non-biased information to help them make choices, and also to help them understand issues that affect their daily lives.
In one important sense, finding quality information is easier than ever before in history. Any person who knows how to do research can find an astonishing amount of information on the Internet.
Information quality
However, in today’s world, it is hard to find objective, non-biased information. Reporting has lost ground. The 7/24 information world is dominated by the push marketing of a biased point of view, especially consumed by people who tend toward the same biases. It is even difficult for a discerning individual to find fair and balanced subject matter analysis, much of it buried within the mass of poor information, whether seen, read, or heard.
A Type of Information
Finding objective information is not the only challenge. Wisdom, which throughout most of time has been readily available and respected, has almost disappeared from the scene. Everything seems to happen faster these days, and more remotely. Wisdom – which is gray, more careful, less sure, but perhaps most reliable – must compete with tweets, push marketing, the Internet, social media posts, cable and streaming news and outright misinformation. The 7/24 cycle has extraordinary capacity and limited validation capability, making a discerning person feel as if a synthesis of viewpoints has disappeared.
Wisdom is even richer than fair and balanced objective analysis because it also contains a type of character that enriches through experience. It is wise. It offers just judgment as to action. It is sagacity, discernment, and insightful.
Wisdom can be found within anyone. Sometimes we even describe a young person as a wise old soul, though generally, it is found among discerning people, who are also older. Age distills a lot of misinformation. Mistakes clarify. Time allows learning. Experience teaches. Pain clarifies peace. Sadness makes you understand happiness. Failure helps define success. Judgment deepens over the years. For many of us, we become confident of our wisdom as we enter into the fourth quarter of our lives.
4TH QTR information.
4th Quarter information is a type of expertise, though not necessarily the knowledge of the professional expert. It is the knowledge of a life lived, in a discerning fashion, which integrates experience and facts into informed judgment. 4TH Quarter information does not tell you what to do. It tells you what to think about before you choose, or before you rest in certainty.
Sagacious people are continuously learning. It is in their DNA. What such people know could help anyone seeking to discover richer choices and to make better decisions about family, business, spirituality, investments, personal fitness, health, and public affairs.
The Need to Give Back
Many wise and sagacious people ache for a way to pass on what they have so painfully learned to people they love. Indeed, many of us would simply love to write a letter to our grandchildren and say to them:
“Hey look, I didn’t get a lot of really important stuff right when I was your age. I wish I had known then what I know now. Maybe I can help you avoid some of the same mistakes, or certainly influence you to look more carefully and more continuously at your choices. Choices have consequences. Mistakes are inevitable. Maybe I can help you to move earlier from hurtful choices and lessen the overall impact of your mistakes. Maybe, I can just bring you love, and soothe your pain.”
For a lot of people, men and women, old and not so old, just having the opportunity to write such letters would be a godsend.
Writing a Letter to My Grandchildren
4thqtr.com is a site that provides synthesized and integrated informed judgment, on the most life relevant subjects, packaged up as letters to my grandchildren. Information is gathered from a group of discerning individuals, and is based on expertise, research, experience and sagacity. This information becomes 4th Quarter content through a process of managed integration and synthesis. Wisdom is iterative, flowing from the recycling of objective analysis, frequently from a number of sources. The 4thqtr.com site groups the information by subject matter into six information forums: Family and Legacy, Health and Fitness, Work, Portfolio management, Public Affairs, and Spirituality and Religion.
Some of the information is tailored for young people. But also, some of the information is challenging, if not very challenging. After all, we in our fourth quarter of life have less time. We must talk now about things that are important. Our younger grandchildren may need to read our thoughts when we are gone. Our spiritual grandchildren, who may be any age, get to hear all of our thoughts now.
The Fulfilling of two Needs
The www.4thtr.com site fulfills two distinct needs. First, a discerning person’s need for informed, intelligent discussion that can enlighten judgment and choices about the major subjects and issues emerging in day to day life. 4th qtr. information is made available to everyone. Second, a wise, older persons want or need to pass on to his or her actual and spiritual grandchildren the lessons acquired from living a variety of circumstances, paying attention, and reflecting on what it all meant.
The Process
The founders of 4th qtr. have developed a set of programs and processes which facilitate the collection and integration of 4th Quarter information from a group of recruited individuals, and also from a wider group of interested people. Only selected and qualified individuals can provide information on the site.
