We all have them. Plans for the future and fantasies for how we’d like them to work out. Some are practical, some outlandish, most a combo–I recently started calling these “plantasies.”

I’ve been plantasizing a lot this very cold and gray spring. About moving somewhere gorgeous (i.e., with trees and swimmable bodies of water nearby). The kind of place where weather isn’t that important because the beauty of most days is immediately apparent–the trees look mysterious in the clouds, the sky all gray and wet has a certain mystique, the howling wind sways the leaves. I’ll live in a house made from recycled timber with skylights. Feng shui-correct architecture for optimal chi-flow. A cat or two. No houses close because we’re next to a National Forest. And by “we” I mean my nurturing, smart, funny, spiritual, wise life partner. We have a great community of friends. My mind is calm and kind to me. My body healthy. I’ve got several books published, teach yoga, travel occasionally around the country and the world teaching and talking and playing with people to somehow create better, healthier lives.

It’s not Mother Theresa stuff. And it’s not necessarily all I want all the time, but it’s a plantasy that I’d like to plant, like a seed (plant-a-seeds?), and see if it has anything at all to do with what the Universe is planning.

I know some things I can do that might nudge this along–“ask, believe, receive.” Present-tense affirmations, yadda. I know plenty of spiritual philosophies, like the Law of Attraction, say we are the ultimate directors of our lives–that we have chosen everything from our parents to our bank balances. I’m not certain I believe that, and maybe that’s why I don’t have all those things yet.

Other approaches say the work is simply to learn to be happy with what we have. And yet others say that once we feel gratitude for what we have, we’ll get all those things we want precisely because we don’t NEED them to be happy. The ultimate koan–once you stop needing it, you get it. Once we learn to feed ourselves, life hands us a platter. Arg. That one has hooked me–I get tetchy with my secret hopes, the ones that have deep, spindly roots that are craving water. Like, “Hey Mr. Desire, if you could be less central, or perhaps evaporate altogether, then I could have what I want. So shove over.”

But nope. It doesn’t work that way. How does it work, exactly? Balancing needs and wants, getting what we want, not sounding like a Rolling Stones song? Etc?

After that rambling, what’s one of your plantasies? How are you making it real?