Petrea King answered 'yes' to the question in the headline in a "IQ2"-debate. The question was "Is the Pursuit of Happiness Making Us Miserable?" (see video at the end). I fear that she just could be right.
This is basically an Epicurean idea. According to Epicurus we could very often simply lead a much happier life if we just could be happy with what we already have instead of constantly trying to find something new that could make us happier.

The real message here is to accept the fact that you can well be happier in your current situation also, if you just really put effort into it. So, the pursuit of happiness really can stand in the way of really being happy. This can happen, if people believe that they can be happy only by achieving something new. There is, however, the very acute risk that these new things fail to deliver any new improvements in one's true state of happiness.
The thing here is not, however, about giving up improving oneself and one's circumstances. It is about realizing that just getting new and bigger things does not necessarily make us any happier.

A lot of happy moments in life do comesfrom struggles that end succesfully. Most of all happiness often comes from acts of mastering new skills. However, it is a different thing than expecting to find happiness from a bigger house or higher rank in organization.
Of course, also material improvement can also forward new challenges. These challenges can make you happier, when you learn to master them. However, it is not always possible to advance in life. Then the important thing could just be making the best of what we already got.

This is an Epicurean idea, but very similars ideas are popular in Stoicism also. As the greatest Stoic of them all Marcus Aurelius said: "Very little is needed to make a happy life." The real point here is that you can achieve happiness by also doing the thing you already do in a different way or most importantly with a different attitude.
You just need not to think that only new and untried things can bring an increase in happiness. New things can of course also well increase your happiness, but as well the novelties can fail you time after time.

Wikipedia

A philosophy like Epicureanism or Stoicism is of course not science. They are just opinions, a good, well formed and reality-based philosophical opinion can sometimes be just as valuable as thousand facts, when this opinion is used in a right way.
A philosopher is a person who has chosen the task of thinking about also the very basic nature of life. Many of these ideas will always be matters of opinion only. There will never be any kind of final scientific truth on how to be a happy person.

On the other hand, a philosopher can truly help us achieve happiness in our own minds by creating a solid base on where we can rest our own thoughts. After all, happiness does live inside one's own mind only. There is no real objective scientific definition of happiness that could include all the possible ways with which people can be happy.
Achieving greater happiness by controlling ones urges and lowering ones expectations is one of the core messages of Epicureanism and Stoicism. This message has not lost a single bit of its actuality. The general economic growth in our societies has, after all, been fueled by just these non-reachable expectations.

Striving to fulfill these expectations has brought us a kind of wealth that has never been seen in the history of mankind. However, another thing altogether is if this rise in wealth has made us happier in similar proportions?
It just could be that at least some of us could improve the very quality of their life by not constantly wanting more and bigger things in life.

PS. I know all too well that is it all too easy to sit in a nice house in an affluent society and moan how all this affluence is destroying us. In the real world I am not willing to give up anything that I have achieved.
However, I may just have reached the plateau where more and bigger does not give any more satisfaction. This may be the case for many other, similar people too. At least some of them could perhaps benefit from accepingt the idea that one really can stop struggling for more and more at some point of their lives.

Not all members of our society could or even should refrain from aiming forward and upward in their lives, as this process simply makes our current societies go around. However, many individuals just could at some point of their lives even greatly benefit from being more just content with what they already have.

(This piece was completely refurbished on 24th of September, 2012)