I check out No Impact Man's blog pretty regularly because I'm totally fascinated by the x-treme green experiment this New York family is brave (or insane) enough to test out.

You may remember the concept: No Impact Man, his Prada-loving wife and their two-year-old daughter decided to spend a year trying to live without generating trash, carbon emissions, toxins, elevators, subway, packaged products, plastics, air conditioning, TV, and (drumroll please) toilets. Or, to use his phrase, to unplug almost entirely from the "consumption matrix."

One of No Impact Man's recent posts focused on how he manages feelings of deprivation -- which I'd experience after a week without Q-tips, let alone a year without toilet paper.

He responds by explaining that his pared-down lifestyle and recent choices actually make him happier. Seems that it helps fulfill four basic tenets that contribute to happiness: Strong relationships, expressing your core talents, living in accordance with your values, and connecting to a larger cause to provide meaning. "Unplugging from the consumption matrix" -- as he put it -- fosters each of these tenets in different ways and contributes to a fuller life.

I repeated his phrase, "the consumption matrix," to a friend while we were in the car, and it sparked a fun conversation about our culture of consumption. It's easy to recognize how it's fueled by perpetual exposure to images, information, slick ad campaigns, and guerilla marketing tactics.

As we chatted, I started paying attention to the billboards and signage that are part of any urban freeway landscape. Wherever I looked, I was offered a path to a happier life. All I had to do to achieve it was buy the right stuff, whether that meant cars, sofas, plastic surgery, T-bone steaks, or tortillas.

Even though I try not to subscribe to those ideas, I was surprised to realize that one message -- through infinite variations -- is constantly seeping through my entire life: Happiness = consumption, while unhappiness = the sense of deprivation that's due to not consuming it.

No Impact Man's post reminded me how easy it is to forget that happiness has little to do with consumption or deprivation. And it has much to do with figuring out what we believe in. (For the record, though, I definitely believe that good tortillas contribute to a happier life.)