Matthew McConaughey has been keeping diaries for 35 years, since he was 15 years-old. When he reflects on the diaries, he discovers a host of lessons and hard-earned wisdom that he can trace back throughout his life. He introduces the concept of “greenlights,” explaining that, “if you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges […] you can enjoy a state of success I call ‘catching greenlights’” (Location 84). Greenlights, like the green traffic signal, are “an affirmation of our way,” leading us to the people, places, and things that we seek and are meant to learn from (Location 171). McConaughey believes that catching greenlights is a skill we can learn, whereby we can design our lives to optimize them. But he also emphasizes elements of timing and luck, such as being in the right place at the right time and the flexibility to adapt to life’s challenges and intuitively learn when to persist, try a different tactic, or concede a loss and move on.

Through this memoir, he hopes to guide the reader to catch more greenlights using the “existential outlaw logic” that he has garnered from a life of adventure, successes and mishaps (Location 158).