The Happiest Man in Texas

i recently authored one chapter in an Amazon best selling book named DESIRE, DISCIPLINE & DETERMINATION - Lessons from Bold Thought Leaders.

The reviews turned out great so I thought I would share with my linkedin friends...hope you enjoy. If anyone thinks they are happier, let me know.

CHAPTER 31

To you baby boomers out there who wake up like I do with a new ache or pain everyday...here are a few words of affirmation and consolation. 

You are never too old to be happy, and you should never give up on love.

I am truly blessed and so thankful to have become the one and only happiest man in Texas. However, I do realize I cannot take the credit for this milestone alone. I know in my heart this has only happened to me because of my amazing wife Debby, my truly splendid five daughters, everyone’s friend—Ms. Ann, and last and least my digital “mistress.”

All of these incredible ladies have changed my life for the better. My daughters, now all married, shelter their families with high moral values of honesty, compassion, empathy, and kindness. It truly humbles me to observe the energy and intensity with which they care for themselves, their families, and their communities. I have tried in my own fumbling way to show my ladies the awe and pride I feel observing their steadfast resolve to nurture the life around them. Their energy for doing the right thing for everyone compels me to want to be that better man, that better father and better grandfather that I should be.

Sadly, I was not intelligent enough to provide the smoothest glide path for my daughters to grow up on. You see, apparently their father has a tendency to marry to the tune of that Coldplay song that goes “I will fix you.” As we say in Texas, that dog won’t hunt and never has. So, without a reliable female role model in our Southlake home, my mother Marie selflessly stepped up to make certain our girls grew up well. My daughters are, of course, all different and like every human have their own personal challenges, but I can only feel the deepest satisfaction for the honor of being their dad.

My girls are smart, savvy, and successful at whatever they want to do. Their strength of character and the energetic intensity with which they seek fairness and empathy for others warms my heart that I must have done something right. I was a single dad for many years, so it would be remiss and wrongheaded not to acknowledge that many other kind women stepped up to take my girls shopping, be a friend, and hear them in ways  a dad cannot or should not. While I have tried to thank all these ladies over the years, and I pray they know who they are, one special lady named Ann (married to a high school buddy of mine) deserves special appreciation from the Awtry’s for her compassion, empathy, and wisdom.

A dear priest friend of mine once told me “Don’t give up on love.” I thought

Yeah...right.

So, while my beautiful daughters have elevated me from being happy to being happier, I know they too are astonished and delighted to see my new incredible wife Ms. Debby propel my leap into being the happiest man in Texas.

My Debby is truly the perfect woman for me. From our first “interview” date courtesy of Match.com, I knew she was different. I will admit that when she told me she had seven grown children, I did unconsciously take three mental steps back and put my hands in my pockets to find my car keys. She saw this, yet sweetly and gently pointed out to me that while she had seven children all grown, mature, and independent, she only had three daughters to my five!

The more we talked, I learned Debby had lived and worked on a Chicago area farm for years, and that she had home schooled her wonderful children with one being accepted to the Air Force Academy. She cooked organically, cleaned meticulously, and ground her own wheat to cook homemade bread. She had loved her life as a mother and a teacher. Ms. Debby, my wife who is to me holy and full of grace, is also incredibly creative and teaches quilting and knitting at her Mountain Laurel Retreat for women in New Braunfels. I am humbled with the realization that after being single for 13 years, I was blessed to find the most caring, thoughtful person I have ever met in my life. I often wonder how such a wonderfully earthy talented woman could choose a man like me. Most of my day is in front of a computer trying to help baby boomers and millennials achieve their dream of having their own Shopify store. My daily prayer is that my Debby’s simple and pure life will compliment my often online virtual one. I hope to make it into heaven on her coattails.

My sweetie is not only a friend to me, she also inspires me with her compassion, kindness, and gentleness to do what I always thought a husband would be obligated to do for his wife and mother in their latter years—put that good wife up on a pedestal of respect for the years of work mothers and all great ladies do. While I was not the father of her seven children, I yet know it is right and just for me to place my Debby on that pedestal she so deserves.

It has been wonderful for me, at the age of 68, to find myself enjoying a level of happiness and acceptance that seemed to be just out of my reach in my younger years. Like most of us, I guess I had always accepted the fact that aging would take me down a fairly predictable path of a slow mental decline. And, of course, aging would be coupled with a depressing inability to recall names and faces, or to get excited about new opportunities and new technologies which I love to fancy, or to realize a degree of wisdom about life.

I remember distinctly that January day in my mid 50s, looking in the mirror and thinking surely I was doomed to become that grouchy old granddaddy that at best my daughters and grandchildren might tolerate. I wanted not to be a source of ridicule but rather to be a blessing, maybe even a respected source of wisdom to them as C.S. Lewis so beautifully described it with the word “lovingkindness.” Most of all, I wanted to be certain my daughters and grandchildren (still one or two more possible!) knew all the love I felt for them.

While I had done well enough in business, I am certainly not rich financially, but I always knew I would be fine having “enough.” Early on, I understood that money does not make anyone happy and that all it can really do is make you comfortable.

Despite all the blessings, I found myself going into my 60s with the nagging unfulfilled desire to build a software company that was really out there on the cutting edge of technology. I knew having the kind of company I wanted would take long hours, hard work, and that I would have to risk it all. I knew I had to take the risk soon or I would go to my grave thinking I simply had not had enough faith in myself and my God, who I knew loved me. I felt myself in danger of not accomplishing what the good Lord sent me here to do. I was running out of runway.

Instead, to my delight, I discovered new skills and a new confidence. Once I made that first fateful leap, I was able to appreciate that the application of the good old American values of hard work and persistence still pays off.

Now, after years of investment and hard work, I have been blessed to watch my company iPersonalyze grow and become profitable, not only for me but also for my business partners and clients. The learning process I went through and all the holes I stepped in made it possible for me to give back to other entrepreneurs. I saw that during my journey I had learned some valuable insights I could teach and share. The technology business I unwisely had put on hold for so many years lives!

I have also learned why I think any baby boomer should take the leap and accept the risk to fulfill their own dream, their own passion they have been ignoring like I did. I believe our brains are wired to help us baby boomers!

With a little research, I have learned that neurologists now believe our brains, instead of starting down a path of slow decline after middle age and fogging up little by little until our 70s or 80s, can mature. And with some focused personal effort, new learning will inevitably bring new cognitive skills online. These new skills, enabled by neurons hooking up with new, significant others, cross-index with each other as we age. The pleasing result is that our existing experiences and knowledge combine in exciting new ways.

This makes sense to me. I am certainly not a neurologist, but I can logically relate a brain to a computer. I recognize that my short-term memory, like a computer’s RAM, is unable to pack huge new gigabytes of raw data into it. Even so, its years of accumulated mental bits and bytes of experience and knowledge are somehow more accessible than ever before!

Neurologists also tell us that we acquire better reasoning skills in middle age as fresh layers of myelin sheath are laid down in our brain. Essentially, it appears that well before we really get into our 60s, our brains have spent decades upgrading themselves from a simple dial up connection to a high speed fiber optic version.

So, while short-term memory and retention decline because our short-term RAM store is full, our ability to access and recompile what we already know grows if you challenge yourself by going out and taking risks.

The launching of my digital love, my “mistress,” iPersonalyze in my 60s, has helped me encourage those old neurons floating around in my hard drive to locate new, significant neurons to give me new insights. I believe this process is not only mentally healthy for us as we enter our later years, but it is also a golden opportunity to experience the satisfaction of seeing latent creative skills emerge. And better yet, with these new skills and connections kicking in, we get wiser with improved ability to parse meanings and manage information.I believe any mental leaps one can take are leaps of growth and blessing that are built into our brain chemistry by our Creator, who is “lovingkindness” itself.

The even better news for us baby boomers is that I am pretty sure that becoming happy, happier, and the happiest is not even the best end we can achieve. For I have noticed that on those rare occasions when I am honestly humble and truly forgiving with a thankful heart, I can catch a glimpse of the next mental leap coming online soon—peace and joy.

 Certainly it is a bit bodacious, even when writing in Texan, for any man to categorically state that he is THE happiest man anywhere. However, it seems logical that someone in Texas must be the happiest, and since now I have all this newfound confidence via my improved neurons, I see no reason why I should not stake my claim to being the happiest. Truthfully, with all the love that surrounds me I cannot fathom how any Texan could be happier. Actually, I hope many more claim to be...and at the same time recognize their own thankfulness.

 So, boomers out there, please take heart. Launch that business, search for new ideas, and share your own new wisdom as you cross the finish line of this good race. Yes, your bodies are starting to suck it up. It happens. But, the fantastically great news is that your Creator still loves you and from time eternal engineered your brain to help you become the best you could ever be and the happiest you have ever been in your life.

Victor Awtry is a visionary entrepreneur and founder and CEO of iPersonalyze. As innovative and creative software developer, Victor seeks to bring the latest cutting edge personalization technologies, typically available to only larger companies, down to smaller companies and startups in the graphics, printing, and communication industries. Victor is regarded by his peers as a thought leader in the emerging Fourth Wave of Mass Customization, which Victor renames Mass Personalization since customization is about products and personalization is about people.

1308 East Common Street, New Braunfels, TX 78130 817.329.6621, 817.938.3305 cell