Greenlights

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

I’ve been in this life for 50 years, been trying to work out its riddle for 42, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last 35. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green, too.

Good luck.

I indulged myself with this read at the advice of my book club friend, Kim.

I ragged on her a bit a few reviews ago for her monthly book selection–The Black Count–which just so happened to be one of the most boring audiobooks I have listened to in a lonnnnggg time.

Kim and I have some likes and views that line up, and some that don’t. She RAAVVEED about that book and has even read it MULTIPLE times…and I seriously had the hardest time staying awake thru it.

She really enjoyed this book….so it was 50/50 whether I would or not. 😆

But I gotta say…your rec was spot on and this read lived up to it’s hype, girl! 🙌

I do love listening to Matthew McConaughey talk…I can not even lie about that.

Something about that accent and that cadence and that self assuredness that is always lingering.

(although it does NOT work on my regular 2x speed for audiobooks…I had to take this one down a bit so I could fully appreciate that drawl of his LOL)

I most DEFINITELY was among the teenagers/young adults who fell absolutely IN LUST wit Matthew McConaughey when he played young lawyer Jake in the movie “A Time To Kill” in 1996…and also 3 years prior to that when he played the creepy Wooderson in “Dazed and Confused”, even if we didn’t want to admit our attraction to his sleazeball portrayal 😆

This book is EXACTLY what you think a memoir by him would be like.

He is a funny, entertaining, and–dare I say–inspiring guy, yall.

His light hearted cackles as he laughs at himself and his excited inflections as he tells happy moments in his adventure of a life was charming AF.

I loved all the bumper stickers he shared and the little “notes to self”.

“Localize to customize. Adapt to modify. The Renaissance man is at home wherever he goes.”

“If you’re high enough, the sun is always shining.”

“Knowin’ the truth, seein’ the truth, and tellin’ the truth are all different experiences.”

“Knowing who we are is hard. Eliminate who we’re not first, and we’ll find ourselves where we need to be.”

“I believe the truth is only offensive when we’re lying.”

“Persist, pivot, or concede. It’s up to us, our choice everytime.”

“I’d rather lose money having fun than make money being bored.”

I gotta say though even with all his personal advice/wisdom tidbits that were spot on, his MOM’S advice to him about acting was my biggest take away.

“Don’t walk in there like you want to buy the place, walk in there like you own it”

Matthew CAN be a little toxic positivity/motivational speaker for me at times though. Yall know I can have bitter and cynical tendencies which cause me to roll my eyes HARD at the “go get ’em” type of soundbites.

There is also some toxic masculinity and a sense of privilege sprinkled here and there too.

But…

none of that was super prevalent or domineering and did not overtake the fact that I really liked this read.

All in all, it was a bit of a mess mixed with a lot of realness, humor, adventure, authenticity, and advice…and it was a pretty damn good time.

All that’s left for me to say about it is:

Just keep living, yall.

Alright, alright, alright.

(please tell me yall read that in his voice…and if you didn’t, go back and do it right now😆)