The "Pursuit" in the Pursuit of Happiness

We have paid too much attention only on the "happiness" part of the "pursuit of happiness"but ignored the importance of the act of pursuing. Petra and Evan brought up the interesting point that being happy is making the decision to reach the top goals, having the opportunity to pursue anything. I cannot agree more on this as I think of what I have right now and what I want to have and who I want to be in the future. The idea of not having the chance to make one's own decision to even think about a dream haunts me. The pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of property, and the pursuit of anything wil not realize if no one is pursuing. After reading the chapter about happiness a history, I found that  there could be an opposite argument. Lockean view, according to the chapter, sees desire without limit as dangerous, as with desire focused only on self. Tocqueville also asserts the harm of the restlessness of the American life and human desire. Is the act of pursuing happiness human desire? The desire of becoming happy, in this sense could be destructive because desire, a private pleasure, corrupts civic virtue, which is essentially the foundation of individuals and societies. Do I want to work for something that is impossible for me to reach really hard? Should I just focus on what I have right now and stop dreaming but instead make the best of right now? Mill would probably say the latter. I found his idea of indirectly getting to the ultimate happiness very interesting. He claims that happiness is an end and there are lots of means to achieve it. Aiming at something else and find happiness on the way fascinates me because the something else here could mean anything, anything I already am and have right this second, and I will be able to find happiness along the way without consciously making any decision.