This article from Tim Ferriss offers an alternative view on one of the most well known models in the history of psychology: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Often depicted as a pyramid of gradually ascending levels—with self actualisation at the top—few concepts have influenced the Western mind more.
Interestingly, this was never Maslow’s view in the first place.
He described needs as “unfixed”, overlapping, and reversible in order.
There was no pyramid.
That is until corporate consultants co-opted his work in the 1960s to sell their programs.
In this post, I explore the toxic effects this pyramid-paradgim has had our collective value hierarchy and why Ferriss’ “Hamburger” may be a more appropriate alternative.
The problem with the pyramid is that it places self improvement at the top.
In this paradigm, everything else—including relationships, play, spirituality, and nature—are subordinate to the primary task of actualising oneself.
For decades, this notion has been quietly guiding the self help genre and influenced our collective value hierarchy as a result—contributing to the increasingly individualistic culture we now find ourselves in.
It tricks us into perceiving life to be a one-player game, the ultimate goal of which is self actualisation.
Not too dissimilar to a bodybuilder who spends all of her time perfecting her own physique—sacrificing relationships, hobbies, and the joys in life—for no other purpose than aesthetics.
But life is not a 1 player game.
It’s a complex, interpersonal multiplayer skirmish, involving dense relational networks of collaborators.
A more accurate metaphor, proposed by Ferriss, is to think of it like soccer.
The purpose of practice in soccer serves the higher order goal of improving one’s ability to be a more effective team player on game day.
Similarly, the purpose of self improvement is to serve the higher order goal of improving one’s relationships and ability to contribute meaningfully to causes bigger than oneself.
This was a conclusion Maslow himself reached later in life with his concept of “self transcendence”.
Or, as Victor Frankl put it:
“The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called ‘self-actualization’ is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
Therefore, instead of viewing needs as a pyramid with self actualisation at the apex, Ferriss suggests we’d be wiser to view them as a hamburger:
Notice how the meat contains relationships and self transcendence, and the other needs—including personal growth and achievement—are the garnish and bread?
I.e. Supporting the main thing?
In this paradigm, self actualisation is still important—as the bun and garnish are in a burger—but its primary purpose is to support the meat (relationships and self transcendence).
If this is our model, relationships and transcendence are no longer a supplement to self actualisation, but the primary thing around which everything else—including personal growth—are oriented.
You grow precisely so that you can show up better in relationships and devote yourself more effectively to causes bigger than your individual self.
As Bernardo Kastrup once told me:
Your life is not about you.
And waking up to this truth is one of the most liberating realisations.
So a few questions to think about:
1.) What is currently the “meat” in your hamburger of values?
2.) How is this affecting how you’re showing up in life?
3.) How would things change if relationships and self transcendence became the centre?
