It is important to pause and reflect on important issues in times of stress.  Review recent events and look at how you can get more from your efforts as you review options to the current issues you face in your life.

Questioning the most basic assumptions is often necessary to allowing new and fresh approaches to problems. The answers that can come from within and from discussions with others will at the very least help you re-align to plans.

Take care of yourself and rest so that you have the energy to implement your new solutions and achieve the goal you ultimately desire.

We become vulnerable and often expose ourselves to risks that could result in mistakes and regrets.  Some may give up after a couple of failed attempts but others may keep trying despite set backs and keep trying until they achieve success.

The path to success often encompasses errors and mistakes, some regrettable at first.  We did not always get every question right on an exam in school and we often had to go back and re-study the material to see what we missed, some even had to re-take an entire class over.  Our ambitions in life are often achieved without the perfection of getting it completely right the first time.

I often have looked back at many of the mistakes I have made with gratefulness because if it had not been for those errors I would not have learned important lessons along the way in business and in relationships.

If you find yourself making similar errors over and over again it is time to contemplate and re-evaluate your efforts and learn the lesson in front of you so you can move on.  One way of doing this is taking inventory or your mistakes and regrets and seeing what part you had in them.  Own what you have control over and look closely and the decisions you made that led you to the regretable outcome then try something new.

In the battle for smooth sailing, when one might just start to hope that the worst is behind us  –  consumer confidence is up, a mortgage fix-it plan has come to pass, stocks are on the rise  –  we get a new kick in the shin: the swine flu.

So far, the disease is in the pre-pandemic stages much like the skittish stock market of last summer. But it is very likely that the black October of the swine flu pandemic is not far behind, resulting in more closures, frozen leisure travel, and economies of world cities stalling to a stand-still. It leads one to wonder what humankind may have done to provoke such ire of the gods and Mother Nature.

This is when it pays to step back and realize that life is really behaving quite normally. Really.

It may not seem so is we simply look at the short snippet our own lives represent in the vast epic of earth’s history. But throughout humankind’s known history, we can see some familiar patterns. Countries and empires achieve great advances often followed by deep retractions.  Remember the Romans? Mother Nature’s drama is earth’s way of rebuilding itself. Think of the blooming prairies following Australia’s wildfires and the thriving slope of Mt. St. Helen’s. And while, we have been able to preserve or domesticate many forms of wildlife, viruses don’t happen to be one of them. As any organism with the spark of life in it, this swine flu virus is simply trying to find a better way to live and we humans must make life smooth sailing. And we humans will answer back as we always do, keeping everything in balance. It is the way of life.

Maybe one day we can find a way to co-exist peacefully with these creatures, but in the meantime we can take comfort knowing that living things are doing and will continue to do what they have always done in the face of challenge:  they will keep going. 

Yes, as reported in the news I am  (read story here) the blogger being Sued for defamation regarding a few post I made last year on a forum regarding a Security Breach and litigation of a New Jersey Company. 

This is truly a important case as we address the merging of mainstream journalism, blogging, citizen journalism and the credibility of an author and their means of collecting, researching and disseminating news converges on a more popular medium - the Internet.

I believe that I do own the privilege to protect my witnesses statements that supported comments and questions I made online.  More importantly the comments and questions I made to a group on the Oprano Forum with a purpose of continuing to collect information for a story were not intended to defame or slander anyone but asked with the sole purpose of expanding on research I was doing for a story.

I truly believe in the shared media space of the blogging world and journalism online and the importance of a clarification of the laws to meet with the current technological means of delivery of news and information.  The court heard my testimony today.  The  shield privilege is necessary to protect the confidential witnesses I spoke with and I hope that I will prevail in this case.  

A journalist, blogger, or citizen activist researching the facts of a story has a method of gathering information and fact checking the information and to be stifled in the middle of this process by litigation has been a setback for me personally but I believe in my position that the privilege will apply and I should not have to reveal my confidential  sources for the story I was working on.  

Hopefully we will have a favorable opinion in the next couple of months.  I am represented by a team of brilliant New Jersey Attorneys lead by Jeff Pollock, Barry Muller and Joseph Schramm of Fox Rothschild, John Prindiville of Barry & Prindiville and Arizona Attorney Charles Carreon of Online Media Law.