Actor Matthew McConaughey has some advice for those who, to borrow his dad’s phrase, haven’t « gotten their ‘lick’ yet. »
McConaughey in his new movie, « Gold, » plays a geologist-cum-millionaire who he says reminds him of his own Texas oilman father.
« My dad had some [of this character] in him — every day waking up, throwing his legs off the bed, going, ‘Today’s gonna be the day!’ — his line was, ‘I’m gonna hit a lick! Oh, if I could just hit a lick,' » McConaughey told CNBC’s » Closing Bell. »
(A « lick, » he said, « means make a really big sale. « )
« There’s millions of Americans out there like that, » said McConaughey.
So what advice does the movie star and married father of three — the man who pulled off his own comeback dubbed the « McConaissance » to win an Oscar, whose just keep livin Foundation is now running a string of after-school youth programs — have for those who haven’t gotten their lick yet?
« Well, there’s a bit of a fib that we like to believe in sometimes, where they say ‘Well, if you just do what you love!’ … We don’t always get to do what we love, » McConaughey said. « Can we figure out how to love what we do? »
A similar saying has been attributed to the German literary giant Goethe:
« Cease endlessly striving for what you want to do and learn to love what must be done. »
« There was a wise young kid who had that T-shirt on, on a Brazilian farm three hours away from electricity, » McConaughey said.
« So, if you can learn to like what you do. »
It’s another way of saying to embrace or take responsibility for what you have to do in life. In fact, it leads right into the « self-reliance » that McConaughey also emphasized.
« We’re talking about what the government can do for us … I don’t know. I’m not trying to make it political. I’m going back to self-preservation, and the only one that can change any of us is ourselves, » he said.
« Take some inventory in the mirror, daily, » he said.
That brings up another work, of which McConaughey is a fan: Dale Wimbrow’s 1934 poem, « The Guy in the Glass. »
« But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum / If you can’t look him straight in the eye. »
« I’m not talking taking sides, » he said. « We’ve all got to look in the mirror. We’ve all got work to do. »
« We gotta go to work. Let’s work. Everybody, » said McConaughey.
