If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver
It’s one of those lines that shows up in many places. It’s an invitation and a reminder: a gentle interruption in the middle of ordinary days.
But I’ve noticed we often hear it as a summons to do something impressive—something big, public, and easily explained. But its power is almost the opposite. Oliver’s question doesn’t prescribe a “right” answer. It simply insists that I live deliberately rather than by drift.
The hinge is in the phrase “wild and precious.”
Precious reminds me that life is fragile and worthy of care: don’t spend it numb, resentful, or permanently distracted. Wild reminds me that life can’t be reduced to duty and productivity: leave room for wonder, risk, delight, creativity, the unmeasurable things that make a soul feel awake.
So a billboard is one way of keeping Oliver’s line close—not as a slogan, but as a checkpoint. Not “What impressive thing will you accomplish?” but: what will you do with the actual life you’ve been given, so that it stays wild, and stays precious?
The Afterword 
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