Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

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, 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 realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.

Just My Thoughts

I'm going to put it out there and admit I am already a fan of Matthew McConaughey. I don't always love the movies he does, but I do admire his stage presence. In the movies and shows I love, which he has been in, he ends up playing my favourite characters. So I may be biased, but here's the thing; it doesn't matter how much you admire someone, if they write a shitty book you'll definitely notice. Unless, of course, you like shitty books...

Greenlights was very engrossing. It's been some time since I had such a pull to continue reading a book and I am grateful to finally find one. McConaughey's memoir was interesting, funny, and unique. As he states in the synopsis he does include some of his scribblings. The book is a combination of his scribblings, events in his life, his musings, and the journey to find himself.

Another reason I found Greenlights such a delight to read was how it was written. The whole time I was reading I could picture McConaughey in my head telling me his story. I got the impression he writes like his speaks. This is something I appreciate. If you can read a memoir and picture the person actually telling you, their voice included, then they have truly written a memoir.

I can't speak for other people, but I read memoirs to learn about the person and their perspective about their lives. It's all learning and understanding to me. I don't care about the people they know or where they've been. I want to know their story. I feel as though I got that out of Greenlights and McConaughey is a talented storyteller. 

I recommend Greenlights simply for the enjoyment. Granted, if I wasn't a Matthew McConaughey fan before, I would definitely be now. 

• Author: Matthew McConaughey & Greenlights
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