The Question We Are All Called to Answer
Mary Oliver’s question about a “wild and precious life” is not a demand for a perfect plan. It can be an invitation to notice what feels true beneath inherited shoulds, attend to the body and imagination, and make more room for the desires that help you feel present in your own life.
A Question for a Precious Life
Inspired and also in awe of all that can happen for each of us in 365 days.
Truly, the new year always feels like a bit of a gift to me. A blank slate. A chance to craft and script more of the life I’d like to consciously live and a chance to move away from that which no longer serves me.
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It’s a time of year when I ask myself a question taken from the poem, The Summer Day, by Pulitzer-Prize winning poet, Mary Oliver
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The Summer Day
“Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, “The Summer Day”
These two lines, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” contain the question I feel compelled to ask myself each year.
And indeed, I think this is the question (or one of the questions) we are all called to answer this new year if we want to more fully show up for our lives.
In 2017, life, for many of us, may have felt more turbulent, more fleeting, more challenging than any other in recent memory.
The fragility and preciousness of life can often feel more marked in such contrast. It did for me at least.
And such fragility reminds me to ask this question of myself and to all who come through my doors for counseling and for help, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
In asking this question, we can acknowledge that life is fleeting and that we will die. And that, while death is unavoidable, it can be a source of great inspiration and motivation to help us more clearly see how it is we want to live while we do.
This question prompts us to audit our lives, to examine what’s working and what’s no longer serving us, which courses we may need to re-plot, and which paths still feel like our own personal true north.
I want to gently invite you to ask yourself this question this year. And I also want to provide you with some additional prompts and tips to help you better reflect on what, indeed, you do want to do with your one wild and precious life this year.
Listening Beyond the Shoulds
Sometimes, simply in asking this question, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”, we will know our answers. We’ll hear our soul. We will feel clear.
But, for many of us, this will not be the case.
The answer to this question may feel murky and may feel hard to distinguish from “shoulds” (which, of course, are not true soul longings but rather what we imagine is expected of us from external sources). We may feel so disconnected from our truth that this question makes us anxious or sad that we can’t answer it.
Inherited shoulds are internalized expectations about what you are supposed to want or do, often absorbed from family, culture, or social roles.
In plain terms: a goal can sound admirable and still not be yours. Pausing helps you tell the difference between obligation and a real longing.
And that’s okay! I think that’s a really common response. It’s not as if society by in large encourages us to pay attention to the whispers of our soul on a daily basis, does it?
So I want to share five tips and tricks I have for clarifying your answers to this question if it feels murky for you:
Pay attention to your body. Yes, your body. Close your eyes, deepen your breath, relax into your body and notice any sensations in your body. Tightness, warmth, tingles, tension. Notice it all and be curious what those somatic (body-based) signals are saying. What clues does your body have for you about what you want?
Somatic signals are body-based sensations, such as tightness, warmth, tingling, or tension, that can offer information about an emotional experience.
In plain terms: your body may give you a clue before you have the exact words for what you want.
Pay attention to where your mind goes when it wanders. Reflect on what you daydream about, what your waking reveries contain. Do you dream of travel, of more time outside, of a deeply creative work life? The content that your wandering mind is drawn to again and again may signal a longing of your soul.
Ask yourself, what do you want so badly but are afraid to even admit it to yourself? Is there something you feel embarrassed or even a little ashamed to want or long for? Good! This may be information about what you truly want. Seriously.
Look back at your prior journals and diaries. What did you write about and hunger for when you were younger? A certain career path or lifestyle choice? A way of living in the world that you feel far away from at present? Your old self’s reflections may still resonate with you today, so pay attention to what you wrote about.
Get still. Whether this is in nature, at home on your couch, even on the subway commuting into work, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, try to clear your mind and be still. And then pay attention to what surfaces.
And please remember, this is not about goal formulation, per say. When Mary Oliver asks us that question, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”, in my opinion, she’s asking us to listen to our soul for the deepest kind of life longings we have, soul hungers, true desires and dreams.
I invite you to make 2018 the year you feed your soul more.
When we nourish our souls by consciously choosing more and more of the life we dream of for ourselves, we can, in my opinion, show up in the world more nourished, equipped, and sustained to face the external realities of life and to support others along our path.
I’ll be asking myself this question over and over again this year and invite you to do the same.
Q: What is the question Mary Oliver’s poem asks?
A: The essay centers the question: what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Q: What if I do not know the answer?
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A: Not knowing is a common response. The essay offers body awareness, daydreams, old journals, and stillness as ways to listen.
Q: How can I tell a longing from a should?
A: A should often comes from an external expectation. The essay invites you to become curious about what feels true beneath it.
Q: Why notice my body?
A: Tightness, warmth, tingling, or tension can provide somatic clues about what an experience or possibility means to you.
Q: Is this only about setting goals?
A: No. The essay distinguishes soul hungers and deeper desires from goal formulation alone.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
“Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.”
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist with 15,000+ clinical hours since 2013 and an EMDRIA Certified Therapist. She’s the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she successfully exited. She’s currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). Her expert commentary has appeared in Psychology Today, Forbes, Business Insider, NBC News, and The Information.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
Annie Wright is an EMDR-certified licensed psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, and she's been in practice since 2013. Trained in EMDR, psychodynamic, and somatic modalities, she is licensed in 14 U.S. jurisdictions and registered to provide telehealth in Florida (California, Colorado (telehealth only), Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington). Annie works with driven and ambitious women from relational trauma backgrounds, and everything she writes about is field-tested across thousands of clinical sessions. She is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited, and is currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information.
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