Looking Forward to Looking Back
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I finished Matthew McConaughey’s book Greenlights. It’s full of great stories about a world I know nothing about - part of the fun of reading it!
I’m not going to spoil the book for you by telling you too much, but there were a couple of things he said at the end that I thought were especially powerful. And yes, you should definitely listen to him read the audiobook. He’s a great storyteller.
He asked when are you MOST yourself? This really made me stop and think. I had to pause the audio and drive in silence for a bit. He said it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the happiest, but it means you are most yourself. “Your light is shining and you are who you are and no one else.”
McConaughey also mentioned that just because we are good at something doesn’t mean that is what we’re meant to do in this life. I was thankful to hear him say that because I think I was a pretty good teacher, but I never felt like teaching was what I was called to do. I was good at building relationships with my students, which I wouldn’t trade for anything, but I believe the kids learned because they trusted me, not because I was meant to be a teacher.
But back to Greenlights. A question he raises is this: can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back?
I think we all want to live without cringing about where or what we’ve been. But for some of us, it takes a few tries before we get it right. I’ve worked in many different jobs, but I’m not ashamed of that because looking back, I learned valuable lessons from each one that have guided me to where I am today.
But when am I most myself?
I think I’m most myself when I’m sharing stories and experiences with people. Doing something like this - writing a blog, because I have a need to share some things with the world. I don’t always know that it makes a difference to any great number of people, but it matters to me.
Because why not?
Along those same lines, I’m making up a story based on an event that happened near my home 118 years ago. This story will be published as my first historical fiction novel and I can tell you I’m MOST myself when I’m figuring out how each character would react in whatever situation I’ve thrown them into, and what comes next.
Again, I’m plunging myself into a world I know very little about, and I’m enjoying it every day. It’s not all going to be historically correct - some things will be twisted to fit my story - but in the end, my goal is to create a book that makes people want to keep reading. And because you’re here, I have an idea that it might appeal to you, so I’m going to keep you up-to-date on how it’s going.
Being able to live in a way where we look forward to looking back means to me that we should keep on searching for the authentic path to feeling most like ourselves. When you’re running through life at one hundred miles an hour, it’s tough to see all the sights. We need to take the time to figure out what feels like us, gravitate toward those things, and do that every single chance we get.