Sparking Joy

One of the topics I return to again and again in my life and work is discernment. I don’t think many people get to this stage of life without looking back and wishing they had done something differently along the way. I think most of us probably made the best choices we could given the limitations we were dealing with.

I’ve learned a lot in my exploration of the question: How do we know when something is right for us? It sounds like it should be easy to answer but so often it isn’t.

I was reminded of this today when I finally bought a new pair of glasses.

It took me far longer than seems reasonable. Seven months to be precise. I went back to one store three times over the past month, unable to commit. There were cheaper options. There were glasses I liked equally well. There were practical considerations. I could make a perfectly good argument for several different pairs.

I couldn’t decide. It doesn’t help that I am replacing a pair of glasses I didn’t like. Last time I went against my own judgement and bought something ‘trendy.’ Those frames haven’t sparked joy from day one.

Today I chose the pair I felt the best wearing. It’s been two hours since I ordered them and so far no regrets. Haha!

There is a difference between making a decision and discerning what is right for us. Decision-making is often about weighing information and arriving at a choice. We make lists. We compare costs and benefits. We consider the practical consequences. We get recommendations. We gather information and try to make the most rational decision we can.

Discernment asks a somewhat different question. It asks us to pay attention. The word discern comes from the Latin discernere, meaning to distinguish, separate or perceive a difference. I like that. Discernment isn’t necessarily about finding the one correct answer. It is about learning to see more clearly (no pun intended). We learn to distinguish what is ours from what isn’t, what is life-giving from what is not, what is calling us forward and what we may be ready to leave behind.

And unlike a decision, discernment isn’t something we do only at a particular moment. It can become a way of living. I find myself moving towards a life that feels aligned with who I am as I practice discernment.

As we age we find ourselves asking difficult questions:

• Is this relationship still right for me?

• Do I want to continue doing this work?

• What do I want my days to look like now that I’ve retired?

• What am I willing to give my energy to?

• Is it time to move?

• What is mine to carry?

The scripts that guided earlier stages of life may not fit anymore. We have more experience, but we also have fewer years to spend living someone else’s version of what our life should look like.

Perhaps this is part of the work of the Third Age: learning to become more discerning about what we say yes to.

Marie Kondo famously asked us to consider whether something “sparks joy.” I have always found that question intriguing, although I think the questions of our later lives may be more complicated than that.

Not everything that is right for us sparks immediate joy. Leaving something familiar may bring grief. Say no to an invitation may cause anxiety. Trying something new may be frightening. A decision that is deeply right for us may not feel comfortable at all.

Many women have spent so much of their lives taking care of other people’s needs that they don’t even know what they want. It can be hard to know if something sparks joy! Fortunately, discernment can be developed.

There is an old spiritual tradition that offers another way of thinking about this. In Ignatian spirituality, consolation and desolation are used as ways of noticing movements within ourselves. Consolation can involve a sense of greater connection, openness, love, hope, meaning or aliveness. Desolation can involve contraction, discouragement, isolation, confusion or a loss of vitality.

These aren’t simply synonyms for feeling good and feeling bad. If they were, discernment would be very easy. Sometimes something comfortable is precisely what we need to leave behind.

Mark Nepo writes in The Fifth Season, “… a reliable way to stay close to what matters is to ask the question: Is this heartening or disheartening? If what’s before me is heartening and life-giving, then I give it my all, even if the journey proves difficult. But if what’s before me is disheartening and life-draining, then I am forced to ask, why am I here?”

That sounds a lot like discernment to me.

We can learn to notice what happens when we imagine saying yes. What happens when we imagine saying no? What changes in our bodies? What thoughts arise? What emotions appear? What becomes clearer when we stop trying to force an answer? The point isn’t to eliminate discomfort. It’s to become curious about what kind of discomfort we’re experiencing and what it might be telling us.

Sometimes the answer arrives as a knowing. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes we make a choice and discover afterward what we actually knew and had ignored. And sometimes discernment doesn’t give us certainty at all. It gives us enough clarity to take the next step.

I think that is one of the things I appreciate most about discernment. It doesn’t require us to know the future. We are not trying to predict whether a choice will turn out perfectly. We are learning to become attentive to the life we are actually living.

Back to my glasses.

I could have made a spreadsheet (or to be honest, asked someone else to make a spreadsheet!) I could have compared prices. I could have calculated the cost per year. I could have chosen some other criteria to narrow things down.

None of that would have told me which glasses to get. At some point, I had to pay attention to myself. I had to notice which pair I kept trying on and then I had to trust myself to choose. I admit I did send a selfie to four people I trust to tell me the truth. I can revisit the decision in six months. Many decisions don’t need to be forever choices.

This is the kind of discernment I want to explore with you in my upcoming workshop, How Do I Know? A Practice of Discernment for Your Third Age.

We will look at some of the ways we make decisions, but we’ll also go beyond the decision-making process to explore the deeper forms of knowing that can help us navigate this stage of life.

There are questions in the Third Age that cannot be answered by a pros-and-cons list. There are questions that require us to listen more deeply. And I believe that there are ways to nurture a life that listens for what is right for us.

Originally published on Substack on September 30, 2026