Aristotle said happiness isn't a feeling, it's an activity

For Aristotle, the good life wasn't pleasure or wealth but 'eudaimonia' — a state of flourishing achieved by exercising your reason and virtues well over a whole life, the way a flute player flourishes by playing excellently. You can't have it in a single happy moment; you can only be living it, continuously, through what you actually do.

— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics — c. 340 BC, Book I