The dictionary term of pursuit is “The act or an instance of chasing.” I was brought up to believe that it was when you stopped giving chase that happiness found you. Happiness is ... cartoon and posters were all the rage and sat alongside Simon le Bon and Nik Kershaw on my bedroom walls. A hugely successful advertising campaign for cigars ran for what seemed like my whole childhood, declaring that happiness is that first puff. Each advert showed a man sat amid a day to day disaster, ranging from flatpack furniture cascading around him to a broken seat in a passport booth. As he falls out of shot Handel's Air on a G String begins to play and he lights up, leaving the viewer with beautiful music, a smoke stream and the slogan Happiness is ... a cigar called Hamlet.

In 2000 this advert was voted eighth most popular advert, despite the subject matter being socially unacceptable in modern Britain. Life was simpler back then. Happiness was found in the little things. Now, we search for them in the big things, the expensive things. Thanks to peer pressure we now need to have the latest bag, biggest car or most expensive watch in order to be happy. The modern trend for property development shows our greed perfectly. During the Second World War, spare rooms housed servicemen and evacuees, while in the Fifties and Sixties only very lucky people ended up with spare rooms, and even then there was always the danger that newlyweds would walk straight down the aisle and back up the stairs while they saved for that all important deposit on a small home of their own. Nowadays, we live in the mistaken belief that a spare house is normal.

Whether it's a chalet in a ski resort, an investment property in Spain or your parents' Right to Buy council house it seems that owning just one property is rather poor form, old dear. It is little wonder that our own children are leading such a vicarious lifestyle. Compared to buying a second, third or fourth property, that extra pair of shoes seems distinctly lacking in frivolity. But is the search for happiness being conducted in the right places?

The phrase "the pursuit of Happiness" is far from new. Even in the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson encouraged Americans to strive for "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." However, it fails to define happiness, leaving us all to decide for ourselves where our happiness lies. I teach a creative writing class for people who were teenagers in the 1960's. Every week, the class produces stories based on their experiences and memories, and their current demeanor can be traced straight back to those earlier days, despite the forty year gap. Those who recall happy childhood memories are pleasant in class and positive in their praise of others.

Those who led harsher teenage years still can't let go. They give very little praise to others and grudgingly accept compliments. Perhaps they feel that there is a limit on "good" things, from compliments to laughter, and if they give too many compliments out then there won't be any left for them. It is a very sad indictment of life in the 21st Century because the people in the class are all potential friends. Unfortunately, for some their early disappointments mean they can overlook a gift of happiness when it is offered. Perhaps it is because it is offered as a free gift that we overlook its worth. Professor Oswald from Warwick University recently took part in the science of happiness project and claims that friendship is hugely valuable. The ability to retrieve happiness from friends is worth £50,000 in economic terms.

So, is happiness to be found in other people, rather than brighter and shinier possessions? It is no accident that people now view themselves less happy now, despite our relative wealth, and the plummeting number of marriages. Speaking on The Happiness Formula programme, Conservative government leader David Cameron posed the question, “how are we going to try and make sure that we don't just make people better off but we make people happier,” He could have looked across the channel to France for some insight. Existentialist and Nobel prize winner for Literature, Albert Camus stated back in 1956, “When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.”

Will Smith himself backs this up in his choice of co-stars. His own wife played alongside him in the earlier hit, Prince of Bel-Air, and in his latest film he plays alongside his own son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. Their evident happiness at working together, and working with such a "beloved" person rubbed off on the rest of the crew. In newspaper interviews, director Gabrielle Muccino said of Jaden “he had incredible skills. So evident, so strong. I think the chemistry between father and son is amazing. And both of them probably got something from each other during the process of the movie. I was very, very happy to get Jaden.”

In some ways it is easy to seek happiness in the possession of material gains, merely because the emotional pain at their loss is greatly reduced. You may love your car, house or new bag but in reality when the washing machine breaks down we simply replace it. It may cause a nuisance, while repairs are being made, or replacements sought, but it is a mere blip in our life compared to the feelings of losing a loved one. Some people, such as relatives, will never be replaced. When your mother dies you may eventually seek out the qualities you loved in her in your other friendships, but no one will tell you to go and find another mother. The difference comes with lover, ironically the person we anchor much of our love and happiness to.

Those who have lost beloved partners are split between those who seek companionship with almost indecent haste and those who could never imagine finding that level of happiness again. The people in the latter group, when meeting someone new usually say “I wasn't even looking.” The fact that they have experienced real happiness with another person, usually means their new relationship lasts, possibly because they refused to settle for anything less.

On February 3, the Daily Mail ran a story about Maureen Lipman, who has found love three years after losing her husband, playwright Jack Rosenthal. Interviewed before meeting businessman David Gordon she said “It's almost impossible to think of marrying again. But it's in my mind that I might meet someone new. Maybe happiness is not elusive at all - in truth, maybe sometimes we simply forget how to let in it. Occasionally I see a man who has a look I find attractive, that slightly crumpled, world-weary look that Jack had. But you know, I literally wouldn't know where to begin.” Thanks to her new beau, she now claims “it's nice to come out into the world again.”

Luckily, for all who are rebuffing the possibilities of happiness for an elusive dream, there is always retail therapy to fall back on.