Green Lights
Three years ago I stumbled upon the best selling audiobooks in the Apple App Store and to my surprise Matthew McConaughey’s new book was released! I was instantly intrigued as I love listening to a good audiobook on my daily walks, but there was one looming question left to answer. Does Matthew McConaughey actually narrate his own book or just do the introduction? After a little bit of Google search investigation I found the answer, YES! McConaughey narrates the entire book!
I don’t want to ruin the audiobook for you but this was an instant classic for me. I’ve listened to over 50 audiobooks multiple times and his performance is remarkable. Not once during the entire experience did I sense he was reading from written words. Rather I felt like I was sitting around a camp fire someplace drinking a few cold ones while my good ole’ buddy McConaughey told stories. There is a unique structure to his non-traditional memoir where he breaks up the monotony with bumper sticker readings, sticky notes, and other clever ideas. All which somehow comes together to be entertaining and thought provoking at the same time.
“This is a book about how to catch more YESs in a world of NOs and how to recognize when a NO might actually be a YES. This is a book about catching green lights and realizing that the yellow and reds eventually turn green.”
-Matthew McConaughey
Like most people in the world I made some “New Year, New You” resolutions in which I committed to myself to do a bunch of things that have escaped me my whole life. You know, simple stuff, like wake up early to work out, floss your teeth, and don’t eat like a 16 year old going through puberty.
On January 1st, 2021 I woke up early and hurried to the gym before I changed my mind. On the way I imagined that I’d be accompanied by a bunch of 70 year old men who haven’t slept past 4am in 20 years. To my surprise, there was no old farts at the gym, just seriously committed dudes who did a lot more working out then looking for chicks in yoga pants.
After my workout I felt great and said to myself, “Self, this is good for you…Let’s do this again tomorrow!” So the next morning came quickly and the blankets protecting me from the cold just felt too good to wake up. So I lied to myself and hit the snooze button. We all know what happens next, right?
A week passed by with no success toward my goal of waking up early, then suddenly I had the worst pain in my back and lungs that I’ve ever felt in my life. I seriously thought I had Covid-19 because I read that some patients complained about not being able to sleep or breathe on their backs. Luckily, I tested negative for the virus, but my back was still a wreck. Long story short, multiple chiropractors and pain docs tell me that I have 3 pinched nerves that wrap around my rib cage. To this moment I’m experiencing random intense shooting pain starting in the middle of my back that makes its way sharply around my left side which flames out about 6 inches below my heart buried deep inside my ribs. As you can imagine this makes sleeping damn near impossible without drugs. My preferred nightly cocktail is 20 milligrams of melatonin and 600 milligrams of ibuprofen which get’s me about 5 hours of sleep a night.
After reminding myself that I am clearly facing a red light in my life and all that I need to do is to be patient to let my body heal a bit before the light turns green. But anyone who knows me knows patience is not part of my vocabulary or daily practice. I'm about as calm as a Nascar driver at the starting line of the Indy 500.
So it turns out sometimes you just need to recognize the color of the light and man the F up no matter what the circumstance. It's been over 3 years now and working out early each morning has become part of my permanent life process. Guess what this is?
Green Lights Baby....Green mother fucking Lights!