I have an important question to ask you - in fact, it may be the most important question you can ask yourself:

What's the one thing you want more than anything else in your life right now?

Is it to be loved?

Is it to get married?

Is it to start a family?

Is it to live somewhere else? Somewhere better?

Is it to change jobs or begin a new career?

Do you even know what it is?

Think about this for a moment. We put so much time and energy into thinking about why we don't have what we want. We can come up with so many reasons, so many answers to our own questions, as to why we don't have what we really want.

But I've learned a thing or two along the way about what's really going on here. It's not about you not being able to have what you so want. It's not about there being anything wrong with you. It's not about you being not attractive enough, or intelligent enough, or whatever enough you believe you need to be in order to have what you long for.

It's about something so much simpler than that.

Oh, I've been there. I've thought it had everything to do with what I wasn't enough of and what I was too much of, and how there was no one left who would appreciate who I was or what I had to offer.

But what I didn't realize back then, when it all seemed like such a struggle, was that I was the one getting in my own way of finding what I was looking for.

All of these emotionally unavailable men whose actions were showing me they weren't really looking for a committed relationship; why was I choosing them?

Why was I making it my mission to try to do everything I could to get them to commit to me, to make them love me, to make them want to be with me, when there were so many other available men out there? These other men didn't require this kind of work that I was doing to the detriment of myself, but I wasn't open to seeing them.

I blamed myself, I felt that I should have known better, I thought of a million things that I wished I had done differently but, of course, I didn't at the time.

Because isn't that what we all do so well?

We think it's about us.

We think it's all about us, that it's all our fault and that if we were only someone else - anyone else but our true selves - it would have had such a different ending!

Why do we insist on making this as complicated as we do? If all we want is to be loved for ourselves, there's plenty of men out there waiting and willing and capable of loving us the way we deserve to be loved!

If what we really want is to get married, why do we insist on trying to make a marrying kind out of a man who doesn't want that kind of commitment from anyone, not just us?

If what we want is to have children in our lives, why do we settle for someone who, while he might turn us on in every other way, doesn't share the desire to make a family together, hoping beyond hope that he'll change his mind?

If what we want is to change our jobs or start a different career, why do we come up with all those reasons why we can't, rather than taking a chance on ourselves for a change and going back to school, taking out a loan, moving in with a friend or family member, and seeing what is possible instead of letting our fears keep us stuck in something we're not happy in anyway?

If what we really want is to start fresh somewhere, or to feel the sunshine on our face in the middle of winter, what holds us back from making a geographical change? Is it really that we're so tied down to where we are right now that we can't make that move? Or is fear of being "wrong", or answering to the naysayers who think we're crazy for leaving what we've got behind and branching out anew?

What about you?

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It doesn't matter if it's not what you pictured, if your life isn't turning out the way you always thought it would.

So maybe you chose the "safe" career that your well-meaning teacher/counselor/parent convinced you to pursue; does that make you happy now?  Or have you always wanted to try that less-traveled path that you never thought you could do?  That someone else never gave you permission to do.

That's the point. What do you really want now? At this stage of your life, not the one you used to be in or the one you're still holding onto. What about now?

Find that clarity.

Peel away the complicating layers to find the simple, sweet clarity of what you really want. If you can't have what you want without what comes with it, is it worth it to you to keep trying to make it work?

Or is it time to let go of what isn't working and clear a path for what wants to work, and is right there waiting for you to see just how much simpler this can be.

You don't have to be right.

You don't have to please anyone else with what you want. But you do deserve nothing less than being true to yourself and being happy with what is always your own choice. Don’t make it about what anyone else wants or thinks you should or shouldn't want; make this about you.

You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be happy. And you're the one with the clarity to make it happen for you.

What do you need to get clear about most? What is complicating your life that you need to simplify down? Tell us about it in the comments!