https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/happiness-model

Inspired by Positive Psychology, Ben-Shahar’s Happiness Model argues that to be happier more often you must simultaneously live for today and tomorrow by identifying and pursuing activities that deliver immediate pleasure and long term meaning.

HAPPINESS HAMBURGER.

Also known as the Hamburger Model, it's expressed in a 2x2 matrix to map actions that are detrimental versus beneficial for your present versus future situation, with the four resulting quadrants of hedonism, rat race, nihilism and happiness.

In Ben-Shahar’s own words: “When you learn how to live for today and for tomorrow at the same time, you learn how to balance your immediate personal needs with long-term goals and enjoy life as you never have before.”

BREAKING DOWN THE HAPPINESS QUADRANTS.

Let’s dive into those quadrants in more detail:

• Hedonism: Actions that prioritise immediate benefits over future ones, maximising immediate pleasure without concern or consideration for the future. It’s the equivalent of eating an unhealthy burger full of salt and sugar that feels great at that moment but is blocking your arteries even as you swallow.
• Rat race: Actions that are focused on a future, often distant payoff. In the meantime, it’s about sacrifice, and doing what’s necessary despite the discomfort or pain. Continuing the burger metaphor, this is about eating a horrible tasting 'health' burger with low carb buns, raw vegetables and a tofu patty — healthy, but far from pleasurable at the moment.
• Nihilism: Actions that reflect a lack of lust for life and belief that life is meaningless, so not caring about the future nor immediate discomfort. This is the equivalent of eating a horrible tasting burger that is also bad for you — the worst of both worlds.
• Happiness: Actions that find the intersection between immediate and future benefits. It’s finding that mythical burger that tastes great in the moment and is healthy for ‘future you’.

While these are sometimes labelled as ‘personality archetypes’, Ben-Shahar describes them more as areas that you will inevitably move between throughout your life. He explains that being in the hedonism quadrant, on occasion, might involve indulging in an unhealthy meal or playing a video game just for immediate fun. Similarly, sometimes it will pay off to sacrifice present benefits to set up for a future outcome. And that, being human, there will be dark times when you collapse into that nihilist space.

LOOK FOR MARGINAL GAINS.

Ben-Shahar is quick to emphasise that being happier is not an end state, rather a continuous process. He regularly points out that the only people who do not feel other emotions are either psychopaths or dead. So, rather than being permanently happy he advocates striving to seek to be happier than today by considering how to spend more time in the happiness quadrant. In that sense, Ben-Shahar is an advocate of marginal gains with Compounding improvements over time.