Matthew McConaughey knows these are uncertain times. He knows you're struggling. And he has a message for you—yes, you specifically. While watching McConaughey's piercing gray-green eyes address the camera in the video below, you may believe, for a second, he's talking directly to you.

Heck, I certainly did.



McConaughey opens the video about coronavirus by gently leaning forward as if he has some tough news to share. Obviously, we already know the news—it's inescapable! It's why it feels like there's a perpetual weight on my chest! Nonetheless, it's refreshing to hear the news repackaged in the same Southern drawl that once charmed Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

"I want to say, in these crazy times that we're in with the coronavirus, let's take care of us ourselves and each other," McConaughey says.

The 50-year-old actor calls upon us to activate our higher selves in battling an enemy that is "faceless, raceless, sexless, nondenominational, [and] bipartisan." Now, McConaughey says, is not the time to succumb to the "lowest common denominator," but to come together.

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because every red light eventually turns green pic.twitter.com/x05GuITW4J — Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) March 17, 2020

"It's an enemy we all agree we want to beat. We want to beat, and we're going to beat," McConaughey says. "This virus, this time might be the one time that brings us all together and unifies us like we have not not been in a long time."

Inspiring, right? But it's the next part, in which McConaughey turns his speech into a new-age manifesto, that's undeniably soothing.

"The economy is going to be in shambles for who knows how long. But there's a green light on the other side of this red light. And I believe that green light is going to be built on the values that we can enact right now. Fairness, kindness, accountability, resilience, respect, courage. We practice those things right now," McConaughey says.

"There's a green light on the other side of this red light."

Woah, woah, woah—green light? Has McConaughey just emerged from The Great Gatsby re-read? It seems like this is McConaughey's creative way of saying, "There's a light at the end of the tunnel." And the light, specifically, is green.

But wait—he's not done. In an Olympic-level flourish, McConaughey levels-up the power of this metaphor by compounding it with another: "Let's see if we can make some lemonade out of this lemon that we're in the middle of. Turn this red light into a green light," he urges, once again.

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With this speech, McConaughey offers a relentlessly optimistic perspective of what may lie on the other side of the pandemic, should we all band together now to get through it. Frankly, I'm not sure if his vision of the future is accurate. But I do know that watching him talk about it, on repeat, is going to be an essential component of my quarantine routine.

In the age of social distancing, options for relaxation are limited. Instead of spa splurges, I've been making do with microwaving therapeutic wraps and having impromptu dance parties in my living room. Thankfully, now I have a new shortcut to an inner sense of calm: Staring into McConaughey's eyes, which promise it'll be "alright, alright, alright."

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