Most people in the US are entering their third month of quarantine right now. Since I’m about two months ahead of everyone else on the timetable, I started thinking: what did I learn in the painful third and fourth month that might help you to avoid that pain in your own life? Maybe it’s a blessing that I went through this earlier, so I can be a sort of time-traveler sharing what’s coming if you follow my blunders?!

While playing in tournaments, professional golfers bring along another very important person as a part of their team, who in the game of golf is called a caddy. The caddy accompanies the pro along the course throughout the game, playing a number of roles. Utility-wise, they carry the golf bags and help hand over, clean, and store the clubs after usage; but more importantly, and most significantly, they are also there to offer advice, support, and their perspective on how to navigate each step of the long golf game. For the pros, their caddy is like their secret weapon to help them win when the stakes are high.

My dad, one of our few golf-loving-New-Happiers, posed this question to me the other day: are there other types of caddies, ones that aren’t for the golf course, but for the hard-for-us moments in our life?

Have you ever noticed that when you’re in a good groove in life, things start to magically become easier, and life transforms into something better? Things seem to flow more smoothly. You are more active. You’re more connected to people. You eat healthier. You’re kinder to others. Life is just good!

And then, when the opposite happens, when you’re in a rut, and it feels like you’re sliding down a slippery mountain of frustration? Maybe you eat a bit too much cake, and then feel bad about yourself, so you skip your regular workout, and then you sleep in, and then you don’t fall asleep as normal the next night, and then you eat unhealthy because you’re tired, and all of a sudden, you’re looking around, wondering how you got into this massive rut?

The wild thing about these upward spirals or downward spirals is that they 1) are real, and 2) really do change your life, because they impact your choices and behavior, your relationships, your sense of self, and how you engage in the world. 40% of all premature deaths could have been prevented through behavioral changes, which very often start with a downward spiral that isn’t halted in time.

My partner is an inventor. He creates magical things that have never existed before. Through years of grit and courage, and the persistent application of his talents to a specific question or problem, he turns what was once a scribbled wisp of an idea into something real, something that people can hold and touch and play with and make their own.

He received a few new patents this week (so incredibly proud of him!) and I started to think about how aligned the idea of being an inventor is to what we are trying to do here with The New Happy community.

Our mission here is to create happiness for all beings everywhere. To make that mission a reality, we all need to become inventors, too, but of a different type: we need to become happiness inventors.