Two Princeton University professors found that in most of the US, people feel comfortably middle class if they earn $70,000 per year. In New York City, the figure is $165,000. The median income of New York City is $55,980, according to the Census Bureau.

Why do you need to earn three times the median income to feel middle class in New York? There's something inherently wrong with that. To me if one earns the median income, or 10% less, or 30% more, then they should feel middle class. It's a sorry state (or a situation which keeps you humble) when people need to earn 295% more than the median income to feel middle class.

Is it that the incomes at the upper end are skewed very high, and there's a lot of upward comparison? Or that there are too many ways to spend money in NY, and people can't afford to do that all the time? Or that the tax rates are higher in NY? Or that you get a lot less for your money here? Or that you have to pay a lot to avoid living in old buildings and having inconvenient commutes? Or remembering how much space and the other comforts you had when you were living in other places? It's likely a combination of all this and more.

I read an article that says to sell videogames well, the female lead characters need to be beautiful but not slutty, strong but not butch, and smart but not nerdy. It's interesting how they almost ALL comply with this description.

Imagine if we had this narrow a view of who we hired at our places of work. There would be an uproar. Will there be a movement towards a more normal range of female characters in games?

Barbie dolls have come under fire over the years for intensifying body-image issues in society. No one has pointed any fingers at the video game industry. Today almost 30% of console gamers, and about 40% of PC gamers are female. With people spending more time playing video games, it's only a matter of time that game developers will be pressured to create more normal characters.

What would happen if a tiger appeared in the office? I wonder what people would do. Hide under their desk and use the chair to blockade them in? Run out the emergency exit and hope they're not followed? Run into an office and lock the door, hoping the tiger won't break through the glass? Run to the bathroom, find a stall and lock themselves in? Ensure that there's someone else that's between them and the tiger?

"Much of modern culture is built around the notion of disenchantment with one's current state. As marketers we count on this angst and insecurity to kick start the engine of daily commerce but what if we could be happy AND unhappy all at once, what would that be like?"

- Blurb for a short talk called "The lost art of being satisfied," which I won't be able to attend.

Disenchantment is a big motivator for action (and consumption), so it's interesting how modern society is shifting us in this way.

Obesity is a growing threat to public health in all the advanced countries throughout the world.
- OECD spokesman Matthias Rumpf, as quoted by USA TODAY

This is a side-effect of the urbanized lifestyle that most of us have. Food is easily available, easy to store, and you don't have to exert much to get what you want. Physical exertion in urbanized environments tends to remind me of hamsters running in a wheel.

Not many are able to break out of what modern society is sucking us in to. I propose we all engage in something that constantly challenges our bodies. Don't neglect your physical condition. Your body is your connection to the natural world, which in urbanized environments, slips further and further away.

75% of women claim they cannot achieve and maintain the look they want.

- not sure of the exact source of this, but it was referenced in some work by people that work on the Pantene brand

"A frog in a well cannot be talked to about the sea"
- Chuang Tzu

Don't be that frog.

The Success Delusion: Why It Can Be So Hard for Successful Leaders to Change

Any human, in fact, any animal will tend to repeat behavior that is followed by positive reinforcement. The more successful we become, the more positive reinforcement we get – and the more likely we are to experience the success delusion.

I behave this way. I am successful. Therefore, I must be successful because I behave this way. Wrong!

The higher we move up the organizational ladder, the more our employees let us know how wonderful we are! Our behavior is often followed by positive reinforcement, even when this behavior makes absolutely no sense. One night over dinner, I listened as a very wise military leader shared his learnings from years of experience with an eager, newly-minted General, “Recently, have you started to notice that when you tell jokes, everyone erupts into laughter - and that when you say something ‘wise’ everyone nods their heads in solemn agreement? The new General replied, “Why, yes, I have.” The older General laughed and continued, “Let me help you. You aren’t that funny, and you aren’t that smart! It’s only that star on your shoulder. Don’t ever let it go to your head.”

- Marshall Goldsmith

"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world... without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries; a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you."

- Neo, into the phone at the end of the first Matrix movie, before he flies away.

A golden rule in crisis communications: appropriate overreaction.

A mantra I've been hearing over the years:

underpromise and overdeliver

I am different from ordinary people. I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.

- from the Tao Te Ching

Saw this on a website, and I think the count is off a bit...

Krispy Kreme Expanding Into Thailand
302,837,616,408,595 people shared this.

Take the time to figure out your purpose in life. For those that do, it's very valuable. Otherwise later on you'll look back and wonder what you did with all the time.

Fines are a tax for doing bad. Taxes are a fine for doing well.

The Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service found that one-third of chicken sold in the U.S. as "natural" was pumped up with additives that boosted sodium content and weight.

You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want.

- Zig Ziglar

"Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle."

- Bob Hope

If you look at paintings of the Last Supper which were painted over the last 1000 years, you'll notice that food portion size has been increasing.

I guess what was a meal back then is only considered a snack now.

According to a recent survey by The Conference Board, just 45 percent of workers are satisfied with their jobs, down significantly from 61 percent in 1987.