Some considerations about chasing happiness

It has always been so, and humanity, likewise every other creature in the animal kingdom, is chasing the forever-after-happy-ending.

We all want to be happy, and we all want to feel worth and appreciated. Nevertheless, regardless the cultural heritage, the country, the race we belong, if you walk down the street, or you watch TV, it seems like happiness is strictly connected with wealth or owning some particular item.
At this point, I am wondering whether people realize that one size cannot fit all, particularly when we are talking about happiness.
The biggest of the problems of modern society is the fact of growing up being literally bombed by false ideas of what will make your happiness and how to pursue that ideal.
People are all different, for homeless happiness can be resumed into clean and dry socks, two meals a day and a place where to sleep when outside is cold. For a person with health issues, happiness is knowing that there will be an end to the suffering, and the healing process is on its way.
For those lucky ones who have all those things granted, it might be some more comfortable living… But is this really what makes us happy? I guess that the real happiness for those who have a house, a family, clothes, health, and shelter is to realize that they do not need anything else and they can just rejoice of the lucky life they are having.

There has been a long debate recently about decluttering our lives and spaces, and I do totally agree with the fact that having too much is an obstacle to enjoyment. By no means I will ever suggest throwing away books, but we all should look at what we can declutter, there are thousands of items we have bought in our lives that belong to the category “I don’t need it but it’s cool,” and generally those are the items that are never used, remain forgotten in a corner because “they are cool, but I have no use for them.”
Sometimes I think we buy things driven by the stress we have at work. We work like slaves and as soon as we have a moment of freedom we go and buy things we do not need, just to reward our efforts at work. So spending money like a sort of therapy; a way to pat our shoulder reminding us of a good job done.
If I think about the most useless purchases in my life, they were done exactly in correspondence with the most stressing periods. Somehow, we are wired with the idea that buying something will make us happier.
On a second thought, none of those purchases made me happy, they just became burdens of which I had to get rid of after a while. The real sense of happiness was when I came back home and spent the evening with my husband and pets. Nowadays I avoid going out with my wallet after a stressful period, and actually, I spend that time in the woods, with my camera. I have discovered that for me, it feels more rewarding a walk in the woods than a walk in the shopping mall.
Do you think as well you are cluttering your spaces and lives after a stressful period?