Greenlights: by Matthew McConaughey
A memoir that invites us to catch the “greenlights” of life.
From the cover:
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five, 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, and a whole bunch of bumperstickers. 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 what you hold now: 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 green lights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green, too. By design and on purpose…
Good luck.
Why should you read this book?
Matthew McConaughey isn’t just telling his story. He’s offering us an approach to life. The theme: learning to catch the greenlights. Greenlights are there to tell us to go forward, to carry on, to advance. Most greenlights are easy to see. But sometimes they’re disguised as yellow and red lights. And these are the detours of life that seem to stop our progress. They may slow us down, but we can’t let them stop us. We have to learn to endure, to anticipate, to be resilient with intent and discipline. As Matthew says, “The problems we face today eventually turn into blessings in the rearview mirror of life.”
Excerpts:
“A realization came to me. I carved these words into a tree:
less impressed, more involved.
The sooner we become less impressed with our life, our accomplishments, our career, our relationships, the prospects in front of us—the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things—the sooner we get better at them. We must be more than just happy to be here.
All the mortal things that I had been revering in my life, everything I was looking up to in awe, suddenly came down to eye level in front of me. All the mortal things that I looked down upon and patronized in my life, suddenly rose up to eye level.”
“I had crossed a truth. Did I find it? I don’t know, I think it found me. Why? Because I put myself in a place to be found. I put myself in a place to receive it.
How do we know when we cross a truth or truth crosses us?
I believe the truth is all around us all the time. The anonymous angels, the butterflies, the answers, are always right there, but we don’t always identify, grasp, hear, see, or access them—because we’re not in the right place to be.
We have to make a plan.”
“we must learn the consequence of negligence—it’s not just what we do, it’s what we don’t do that’s important as well. we are guilty by omission.”
“Still wrestling with my identity, I was guilt-ridden over sins of my past, lonely, and disgusted with the company I was keeping, my own.
In my tent, grappling with my demons, I couldn't sleep, so I quit trying to. Instead, I stripped off my clothes, along with every badge, banner, expectation, and affiliation I had on me. I discarded my American baseball cap that was my totem to patriotism, the Celtic knot pendant that symbolized my Irish heritage, the Lone Star flag amulet that stood for my Texas pride, and every other mascot of inspiration from adventures past. I even discarded the gold ring my father had given me that was made from a meltdown of his and my mom's class rings and gold from one of her teeth. I removed every idol that ever gave me comfort and security, pride, or confidence. All the window dressings and representations, the packaging around my product, was gone. I even punched myself in the face a couple of times for good measure, Who was I? Not only on this trip but in this life. Now naked and stripped down to nothing, I was only a child of God, and nothing more. Soaked in a cold sweat, I vomited until there was no bile left in my belly, then passed out from exhaustion.
A few hours later, I awoke on the thirteenth morning to a rising sun, Surprisingly fresh and energized, I dressed, made some tea, and went for a morning walk. Not toward my destination or any expectation, but rather to nowhere in particular, I felt great—alive, clean, free, bright.
Walking along a muddy path, I turned a corner and there in the middle of the trail was a mirage of the most magnificent pinks and blues and red colors I had ever seen, It was electric, glowing, and vibrant, hovering just above the jungle floor, pulsing as if it was plugged in to some neon-charged power plant.
I stopped, I stared, I backed up a pace. There was no way around it and it was no mirage at all. The jungle floor in front of me was actually a kaleidoscope of thousands of butterflies. It was spectacular.
I stayed awhile gaping in wonder. Captivated, I heard this little voice inside my head say these words,
All I want is what I can see, all I can see is in front of me.”
About the Author
Academy Award-winning actor. Him and his wife, Camila, founded the just keep livin Foundation, which helps at-risk high school students make healthier mind, body, and spirit choices. McConaughey is the Minister of Culture for the University of Texas.