"Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey - Book Review
Summary
"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 realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck."
Review
I'm in my mid-twenties. My best friend recommended this book very forcefully to me because he believes it touches upon some of the dilemmas that we are currently dealing with in our lives, such as finding meaning, the role of romantic relationships and striving towards the person that we want to become. I always liked Matthew McConaughey's work, especially for True Detective and Interstellar. This book is a straightforward read and humanises such a talented actor in relatable ways. It is a very disjointed collection of memories and moments but in a very authentic and genuine tone. The metaphor of "green lights" as those moments in life where we receive a signal to keep moving forward is an effective visualisation of our quandaries, as well as the counterparts of yellow and red lights as moments for reflecting or pivoting. Interestingly, McConaughey explains that he spent his twenties to forties gathering knowledge and facing the maximum amount of yellow and red lights possible. Through these lessons, he thrived maximising the green lights after he was only forty, which provided me with wisdom to understand my current position in life's journey. I felt connected to myself reading it, with a deep lust for life and achievement, and, somehow, a ravaging desire to float the Amazon River.
Key Takeaways
- Easy read with distilled wisdom
- Heed the call of the lights when they come to you
- Funny anecdotes of someone who had singular experiences
Who Should Read This
Readers who enjoy authentic biographies, candid and humorous storytelling and people looking for some practical life advice.
Favourite Quotes
"We need discipline, guidelines, context, and responsibility early in any new endeavor. It’s the time to sacrifice. To learn, to observe, to take heed. If and when we get knowledge of the space, the craft, the people, and the plan, then we can let our freak flag fly, and create."
"My twenties and thirties were contradictory decades, years when I eliminated conditions and truths that went against my grain. The value in this conservative era was that it safeguarded me from fatal character debits early in life. It was a time when I was often more concerned with not running red lights than I was with investing in the greenlights. I did what I wanted, I learned to live. I survived."
"My forties were a much more affirming decade, years when I started to play offense with truths I had learned and put them into action. An era where I doubled down on what fed me. The value of this liberal age was that it illuminated my most life-endorsing character assets. It was a time when I not only cruised through more greenlights because I had eliminated more red and yellow ones, but a time when I created more greenlights to travel through. A time when past reds and yellows finally turned green, as old hardships revealed themselves as good fortune, a time when the greenlights beamed brighter because I gave them more power to shine. I did what I needed, I lived to learn. I thrived."
Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 stars)