COLUMN | One wild and precious life

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

That was the final line my sister, Anna, wrote in my high school graduation card — but most would recognize it as the final line of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.”

The line took my breath away the first time I read it, and I did not know the reference at the time. But knowing Anna as a proud holder of a bachelor’s degree in English, I knew it had to be from a poem.

She was never lacking for prose that seemed to encompass all of life’s many phases. Even after her college graduation, she gifted my parents a beautiful copy of Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays,” a poem she introduced me to but is now one of my favorites.

So, knowing Anna’s successful track record, I re-read and re-read that final line on my card — and it became the heartbeat of my college experience.

To me, the question was a command: to climb the tallest mountains, reach for the highest dreams and push myself in every moment to be the best. After all, if I only had one wild and precious life, I could not waste it.

So, that is exactly what I did — and for a while, I was successful. I tucked my head down and dedicated myself to not wasting a single second. This focus reaped rewards; I climbed through the ranks of student organizations, I worked internships throughout college, I am graduating early and I am attending law school in the fall.

However, as time passed, the command grew heavy. My accomplishments decorated my resume and garnered praise, but they also filled my time and took me away from parties, dinners with friends and last-minute weekend getaways.

Then, in December last year, the card crossed my mind again — and for the first time, I paused and actually read “The Summer Day.”

And it was nothing like I assumed. In fact, it preached the opposite of my assumption.

The poem was unnervingly small: a description of a usual summer day — kneeling in grass, watching a grasshopper and paying close attention to life’s ordinary moments.

The question was never a command nor a test. It was a reflection, an invitation to enjoy the most mundane experiences rather than treating them like hurdles to overcome.

It was a punch to the gut.

I had spent years treating that question like the finish line, but it was not meant to be.

It was asking me to slow down, reminding me that my “one wild and precious life” is not defined by what I accomplish. It is defined by what I experience, who I spend it with and how I live in the present.

Now, when I return to that card, I do not feel pressure. I feel content.

So, I leave you with this advice: Be present in every room you enter and with every person you encounter — and make time for what does not make you outwardly “successful.”

Life as an Auburn student can be as exhilarating and busy as you want. When you walk across the stage, you can have accolades, perfectly coordinated outfits and a curated social media feed with thousands of followers.

But these do not mean you have lived your Auburn experience to the fullest.

Instead, I challenge you: Take the class you don’t need, go to your professors’ office hours, get involved with an organization that truly matters to you, stay late in conversation with friends, have dinner too many times at that one Mexican restaurant with free queso and enjoy the grass on Samford Lawn.

Your favorite Auburn memories will be the “unproductive” moments. I know this, because they have been mine. They remind me to slow down, be present and appreciate this beautiful campus and the people who make it.

So, when you ask yourself how to spend your one wild and precious life, I pray you answer by living life to its fullest not in accomplishments or credentials but in experiences — and the smallest of moments.

This article is featured in The Auburn Plainsman's Summer 2026 print edition.