A great series of articles showed up in this week's Time Magazine focusing, for a change, on happiness and its effects on us physically and mentally over time.

Many studies are finding that the left prefrontal lobe of the brain is most active when people are at peace and happy. "The Biology of Joy" Michael D. Lemonick, Time January 17, 2005. The article points out encouraging evidence that a positive state overwhelms negativity in our lives and generally leans toward a healthier, more productive life.

So I began thinking about how a lot of reporting and focus on the negative aspects of doing business online in the last year might have an affect on a new business owner's success rate.

If the body is healthier because of a positive, happy mental state, is your business better off when you keep your eye on the incredible possibilities and opportunities of owning and operating a business online?

It stands to reason that if you read only articles that talk about how hard things are getting for online marketers, you won't be very gung ho to progress with your business out of sheer dread over facing those obstacles.

But I'd like to take a step back from the micro problems of the day (there will always be obstacles to overcome) and program your left prefrontal lobe for success in your inteet business.

When people talk about problems we all face as inteet business owners, the problems and their "weight" compared to other problems in our world need to be put into perspective.

Yes, while there are obstacles in the way of any success story, on or offline, that is not the point. The point is that we are in the midst of a universal expansion of business and commerce online. And having a successful online business beats out anything else for the freedom and independence owners of such businesses experience.

Fact: There is pure, golden opportunity running rampant on the inteet. The inteet boom is not over - it hasn't even truly begun. We are in an infant state of technology and new problems for online businesses meet new solutions at lightening speed over any other form of business known to man.

We always see statistics of how many businesses fail compared to those who gain measurable, enduring success. How odd that we focus on the negative without proper perspective.

Did you know that the number of people starting businesses is so large that you could take away 90% of the "failures" and the 10% that is left could be shoved (barely) into a mega sports stadium where money rains down on the crowd heavily and constantly?

I know people making a living on Ebay and others who are making over $200,000 a month from their homes. Little one-person operations with massive incomes, low overhead, and true freedom that relatively few people ever experience in life.

But a lot of people who would be great at an online business never really see success because of the perception that online business is somehow harder than what they are doing now. How wrong that is! A change in perception is in order.

Isn't it easier to picture yourself being able to walk right into a massive sports arena where tens of thousands of people are enjoying moderate to massive success, rather than picturing how hard it would be to be the 10% (of what?) that succeed?

When you hear someone say "97% of new businesses fail to make a dime" you need to say "97% of HOW MANY new businesses?"

Factor in that most people call themselves a business and have no business doing so. Figures like the above are results from anyone and everyone who has ever joined a network marketing company or filled out surveys for money. Those aren't real businesses simply because they filled out a form to join something.

So take heart. Creativity, hard work, and a positive outlook on the plethora of opportunity that presents itself daily on the net should encourage anyone with drive to further their online business goals.

Keep your left prefrontal lobe buzzing with all the positive aspects of doing business online. Remember that virtually anything you do online is better than working most real world jobs from factory work up to coer office puppet master.

The freedom and opportunity is what it's all about. Never forget that! The alteative is unthinkable.

Jack Humphrey is CEO of http://WebFoxMedia.com, a marketing consulting firm with offices in the USA and Australia. He is also the author of Power Linking, a guide to marketing your website at http://power-linking-profits.com

Given the nature of the inteet it is only natural that abbreviations should be created. Shortenings such as ROFL, lol and ttfn have become common in their usage, allowing the writer to type faster and still be understand by the vast majority of those they attempt to start a conversation with.

Not so with the dreaded phrase ASL.

Whereas many of the other phrases exist for ease, ASL is naturally intrusive. Age, sex and location � three of the very things many people use the inteet to conceal. A person is immediately judged upon them or worse still, if the answer is somehow pleasurable to the other user one of the following questions are almost always close behind.

�Married?�

�Got a boyfriend?�

�Want to cyber?�

I am a woman, but it has not stopped me claiming to be a seventy six year old male just to get the wrong person off my back. And guess what? They never sent me a message back. Even when a person uses ASL perfectly innocently, because they see it as a standard opening gambit, many people's backs are already up.

There is more to a person than their age, sex and location. Discover those things. Start a conversation as you would in real life, with a person you have never met before at a party, not like some sleazeball in an inteet chat room. It�s amazing what friends you can make if you do!

Andrea is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers. Her online writing portfolio can be found at http://astephenson.writing.com