Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve never been through a divorce before, the realities of the process will understandably be unfamiliar to you. If you are considering divorce and trying to learn about how a New York divorce works, you may get advice from friends, family members, your hairstylist, or someone at the gym. There’s a pretty good likelihood that some or all of what they tell you about the divorce process is just completely wrong.

Myths about divorce in New York can cause people to make decisions or take actions that may wind up hurting them. That is why it is so important to speak with an experienced New York divorce lawyer as soon as possible if divorce is contemplated. Your divorce lawyer can tell you the truth about how divorce works and bust the many myths about divorce.

Here are 12 of those myths that are widely believed but simply not true:

1. Visitation can be denied if my ex doesn’t pay child support.

There is a process for enforcing child support obligations, but threatening or denying a parent visitation with their child is not one of them. In short, access to the children and parenting time are not related to the payment of child support.

2. Commit adultery, lose everything.

Will cheating on your spouse lead to divorce? Maybe. Will being unfaithful mean that you’ll lose your kids, your home, your assets, and your rights? Nope. In and of itself, adultery will not mean that you lose anything. But adultery combined with a wasteful dissipation of marital assets can be a factor in issues of equitable distribution.

3. Divorce can be denied.

When you file a divorce case, you are actually asking the judge to grant you a divorce. But that doesn’t mean the judge can deny your request. If you want a divorce, you probably will get a divorce. New York courts have ruled that there is no right to a trial on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Once all the financial, custody and visitation issues have been resolved at settlement or trial, a divorce will be granted.

4. Mothers always are awarded custody of the children.

While there certainly was bias in favor of mothers back in the day, the law has evolved along with changes in society to reflect that both fathers and mothers can be “custodial” Decisions about custody and visitation will be made based on what is in the best interests of the child, and that depends on circumstances and characteristics that have nothing to do with gender.

5. You must have a lawyer.

Can you represent yourself in your divorce? Yes. Should you? Absolutely not. If you can’t afford a lawyer, the judge in New York may require your spouse to pay for your attorney’s fees to ensure that both parties are adequately represented.

6. You must get divorced in the state where you married.

Life is long and people move. If you were married in Alaska but now live in New York, you don’t have to book a flight to Anchorage to get divorced. You can file for divorce where you live, even if it’s far from the state where you wed, provided you satisfy the residency requirements for filing for divorce.

. You can avoid paying child support.

Child support payments in New York are established by law. If you have a minor child and you are not the custodial parent, you will have to pay child support. If you fail to comply with a child support order, both your spouse and the state of New York will take aggressive steps to enforce those orders and obtain the support owed.

8. Children get to pick who they live with.

If a child has expressed a preference as to which parent they would like to live with, a judge may take it into consideration as one of the many factors guiding their determination as to custody. However, they are not required to follow a child’s choice and will make their custody decisions based on what is in the best interests of the child.

9. Divorce always leads to battles.

Divorce can often be acrimonious and full of hostility, blame, and finger-pointing. But it doesn’t have to be. Collaborative divorce, mediation, and divorce attorneys who are focused on resolving conflicts as opposed to starting or escalating them can help make your divorce a process of negotiation and agreement rather than argument.

10. Equitable distribution results in equal division.

Property division in a New York divorce is governed by principles of “equitable distribution.” What is “equitable” in a given divorce is not necessarily the equal division of assets. Property can be and often is divided in an unequal manner based on the many factors that go into a judge’s decisions about property division. Whether that property is divided 50/50 is not one of them.

11. Women always get maintenance and men never do.

Decisions about spousal support, just like custody decisions, no longer are based on outdated prejudices and reflect the fact that women often earn more than their husbands. Decisions about spousal support are based on the economic realities of the respective spouses regardless of their gender. New York has adopted gender-neutral guidelines to determine how maintenance is awarded.

12. Most divorces go to court.

While you have to file papers with the court in order to get a New York divorce, that doesn’t mean that there will be a trial, or that you or your children will have to testify in court, or that there will be lengthy and expensive court battles. If the parties can reach agreement on all issues, the divorce could be granted on papers. Many divorces in New York are resolved without a trial or without the parties ever stepping foot in a courtroom.

If you are considering a divorce or have a family law issue, consult with or retain a competent attorney to bust your false preconceptions of divorce, set you straight and protect your rights.

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We all have an expiration date, and for his fans, friends and family, no doubt Morley Safer’s came too soon.

But here’s the thing, with how he lived his life, working at CBS’ “60 Minutes” up until announcing his retirement one week before his passing at 84, Morley gave us one last great amazing gift–showing us how to live full out, do what you love, no holds barred, right up until your personal end.

Since none of us know when that “personal end” is, the secret to an amazing full rich life is to do whatever it is that floats your boat, revs up your engines, twirls your baton, as much as you can, as often as you can, as best you can–no matter what your age.

Because that’s what Morley Safer taught us, with the example of his life. Way past the time when most folks retire, Morley continued to be passionate about his work, which in no small measure was a significant factor in his long, happy (mostly healthy) life.

A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found that people’s health often declines after retirement, such that retirees were as much as 40% more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than non-retireds of similar age, most of which occurred during the first year of retirement. How can that be? Isn’t retirement supposed to be a nice long R&R? No stress, no strain, surely no reason for a heart attack.

Well, apparently, R&R isn’t enough. One of the biggest problems facing retirees–especially in a society like ours that puts so much emphasis on youth–is finding something with meaning and purpose to it after their exit from the work world.

The mistake is to think that you have to be a famous investigative reporter to have a purposeful, meaningful life. Or that the only way to find meaning and purpose is to strap yourself to your desk/work station forever and a day. That’s so not the point. What you need to do, regardless of your age, is find those things that feel purposeful and meaningful to you; just you. Not to your Facebook friends, your other friends, the media, your mother, your kids, your SO/bae, your Snapchat buddies, your co-workers; just you.

Then, do those things with as much unfettered enthusiasm, joy and zeal as you possibly can. So whether it’s baking a cake for someone dear’s birthday, volunteering at the local animal shelter, running your first marathon, growing tomatoes, plugging away at the Great American Novel – or for me, plugging away at ballet–give it all you’ve got.

Age doesn’t matter. The life in you does. And it is living your life, as Morley did, that makes it so much easier to have fun all the way.

It is appreciating the opportunities you do have around you for meaningful moments, be those through your work, your hobbies, your projects, your family, your friends–rather than dwelling on the “Gee I wish I could” or “If only” or “Never happen” brain chatter that tramples on your true desires. The “What” that rings your bells doesn’t matter nearly as much as the “How much” it rings them.

So as long as it’s “with harm to none” (duh), wherever you are in life–just starting out, somewhere in the middle, or rich with experience–invest yourself wholeheartedly in what is meaningful, purposeful to you, and have a blast until, a la Morley–outta here!

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Okay, so you know content marketing is effective, and you know that you can’t keep your strategy the same for too long. Still, actually taking the time to reassess and adjust your campaign can be tricky for even experienced marketers and entrepreneurs to overcome. One of the biggest and most difficult issues to address is also the earliest one you’ll face in the process: merely telling whether your strategy is in need of updating in the first place.

Once you decide that your content strategy is in need of an overhaul, you can get down to business–but how can you tell your content strategy is suffering in the first place?

Signs of Wear

There are some clear signs of your content strategy tanking, such as a decline in readership or public negative backlash about your content, but you don’t need advice to pick these signs out. Instead, you’ll need to keep watch for much subtler signs that your content strategy isn’t performing the way it should be:

• Stagnation in search rankings.

Take a close look at how your individual pages have been ranking in search engines. Have you noticed any stagnation? What have your organic traffic patterns been like over the last six months? A serious decline is an obvious example of an issue, but more often, it’s stagnation that goes untreated. You can’t guarantee growth forever, and steadiness isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re striving for growth and you aren’t seeing it, that’s a problem.

• Stagnation in readers/followers.

Similarly, take a look at your readership. How many followers have you earned in recent months? How many new people have subscribed to your blog? How many commenters are you getting? If you’re seeing the same-old, same-old patterns, or if you aren’t earning many new interested eyes, it’s time to revise your campaign to something more modern and crowd-pleasing.

• Fewer comments and engagements.

Engagements are a major factor for the success of your content campaign. Not only are these indications of reader interest in your material (the best form of positive feedback), they also contribute to the visibility of your content overall. A hit here isn’t just a diagnostic tool; it could affect other areas of your performance. Pay close attention to how people are engaging with your material in the form of comments, discussions, shares, and responses. More is always better, and a decline is a bad sign.

• Low conversion rates.

This is easy to overlook, especially if you’re seeing a relatively high conversion rate site-wide. Take a look at how your individual content pieces are performing in terms of conversions. Are your readers successfully purchasing your products after reading your articles? This is an indication of your content’s persuasive power, and also shows how well you know your audience. If there’s a decline, or even a lack of growth, it means you’re missing something, and you may need to go back to the drawing board.

• Lack of recent changes.

Most of the items on this list already have something to do with stagnation, or a lack of recent changes. But a lack of changes almost anywhere in your strategy could be an indication that something is wrong. You want your campaign to evolve, slowly but surely, with the times. If you aren’t changing, and if you aren’t seeing different results, it means you aren’t adapting enough to your changing environment.

• New competition.

This is a rare external factor demanding your content strategy to be overhauled. If a new competitor enters the field, or if one of your existing competitors steps up their content strategy, you’ll need to respond if you want to stand a fighting chance of survival–it’s as good an excuse as any.

How to Overhaul Your Strategy

If you’ve noticed two or more of the signs above, it’s a good indication that your content strategy needs some work. Here are some of the most approachable and effective ways to go about it:

• Start conceptual.

Try not to get too deep in the weeds. Start from a conceptual perspective, and think high-level about what changes you could introduce to improve your campaign. Then break those concepts down into action items.

• Find new angles and new niches.

Sometimes, a simple adjustment is all it takes to breathe new life into your campaign. Are there new niches you can tap into? New angles that haven’t been explored by you or your competition?

• Experiment iteratively, and with great diversity.

Just because you’re “overhauling” your strategy doesn’t mean you have to do everything at once. Instead, experiment with smaller changes, one at a time so you can accurately measure each one’s impact on your overall results.

• Measure and analyze everything.

Speaking of measuring, make the effort to measure everything. Data is your best friend here, and without it, you’ll never know if your changes were effective.

You won’t need to totally overhaul your strategy very often–maybe once or twice a year at the most–but in the meantime, don’t be shy about making adjustments. Few strategies and concepts are perfect to start with, and even if they are, your execution will be questionable. We’re only human, after all. Take the time to regularly perform checkups of your strategy’s health, both conceptually and practically, and make tweaks along the way to keep your performance in good shape and mitigate the need for another overhaul.

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A woman recently told me that years ago, when she was about to take her two babies on a long plane trip, she sought out the advice of a British mother who had five children. This older and wiser mom was a seasoned traveler with children–back and forth from London to the U.S.

“How do you do it?” she asked, seeking advice on entertaining children on board.

Very composed, and in the most British of accents, the woman responded, “Dahling, I strap them in and I drug them!”

Recently, I took JetBlue flight from Boston to San Francisco, marking the start of a vacation to wine country to celebrate the end of chemo and radiation for breast cancer. Mike and I boarded the plane at 8AM, settled into our seats after recovering from a bit of overhead bag tension, and even though we had not started drinking yet (we had a very strict no drinking before 10AM policy on this trip) we took a deep breath, and melted into our seats for the six hour trip across country. Our vacation had begun.

It was before we had our seat belts buckled that the child behind us began to cry. I looked over and smiled at the mother. I felt a little bad for her. She was traveling alone, with two kids, a fidgety preschooler and his younger sister. I get that it is not easy traveling solo with young kids. But it wasn’t easy for us either. It turned out that we had 6 full hours of listening to this kid scream. Six full hours of full on, baby screaming. An hour in, I was no longer smiling at the mom. I was glaring.

Mid-flight, after about three hours of non-stop screaming, I heard the guy behind me blurt out on his way to the bathroom, “I don’t think I can take it much more.” Any one of us in the surrounding 6 rows could have pounced. That baby was lucky to have made it to California alive.

JetBlue recently recognized how awful it is to have a baby screaming during one’s flight by offering a mother’s day promotion for screaming babies, where 140 passengers received a free ticket to anywhere due to 4 screaming babies on one flight (and it appears that they only had to scream for a little while, so what the heck, JetBlue? Got anything for me?)

The Flybabies video shows a young mom packing up all her baby paraphernalia getting ready for the flight. She explains (as if we didn’t know) that there is a lot more to think about when you fly with a baby: “Do I have everything ready? Have I forgotten anything?” she wonders while packing her bag.

“No! No! No! You don’t have everything!” I yelled at my computer, “Lady, you forgot the most important thing…You forgot the Dimetapp!”

Now I am fully aware that this post will get me hate mail of the sort I got when I wrote that it was okay that my 15 ½ year old yellow Lab had finally kicked the bucket (my favorite: “you should never have been allowed to procreate!”). But I really am wondering why parents don’t drug their kids any more before they get on a plane. When did dispensing Dimetapp pre flight become so un-PC? A dose of yummy, grape, over the counter, decongestant…does that really hurt?

That used to be standard operating procedure. Everyone I knew drugged their kids before a long flight. Even the moms that made their own baby food and used cloth diapers drugged their kids. Hell, it might have even been pediatrician recommended (or is that just wishful thinking?)

“Did you remember to bring the Dimetapp?” Mike would ask on our way to the airport. I’d give him that ring around the collar look. Would I forget the Dimetapp? It would be akin to forgetting my birth control pills.

We’d check to make sure the plane was on time (timing is critical.)

“Mike, I think little Eddie is getting the sniffles!”

“Honey, what do you suppose we should do?”

“I think it’s best if we give him some Dimetapp before the flight!”

“I do believe you are right!”

And within an hour, that kid was sleeping soundly on my lap, and everyone around me breathed a big sigh of relief.

It wasn’t as if we didn’t have standards. Boston to New York or Washington, we could handle. Boston to Fort Lauderdale was borderline, Boston to LA a no brainer.  If they were under the legal drug age (6 months?) we didn’t risk it. If they could otherwise amuse themselves by reading, they had aged out.

And I do believe to this day that to administer Dimetapp before flying with children is a public service. It is not only good for the kid, who will fly without misery and very clear nostrils, but it is good for many rows of innocent travelers who do not wish to be subjected to miserable, screaming children. Stress is a killer, you know.

And that baby on the way to San Francisco that cried for 6 hours? You know exactly when that baby finally stopped crying, don’t you? As we pulled up to the gate, that poor mother looked like she had been in world war III, and that baby was sleeping peacefully in her arms. As we were leaving, I couldn’t help myself.

“Next time… try Dimetapp,” I whispered to her.

And for me? I think it may be time to splurge on some of those very expensive, noise canceling headphones. And JetBlue, for sure, a free ticket to anywhere certainly would have helped.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

At Oberlin, it started in December, when the temperatures ran high, although the weeping willows and the yellow poplars that had flared in the fall were bare already.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.