<p>Some theories of welfare hold that whether you are living well depends upon whether you think you are. But then the very phenomenon we want to understand gets deployed in its putative explanation. Views like this face the worry that their accounts are problematically circular. This should inspire us to identify a more moderate view that avoids such problems. For instance, it might seem that what a subject thinks about the quality of their own life merely <i>adds</i> some small amount of welfare to their life. Yet this view faces a similar problem—a subject cannot rationally believe that they are doing well on the basis of what would putatively make such a belief true. I propose a solution: although it is indeed to some extent good for you to believe that you are living well, believing this <i>irrationally</i> is bad for you, such that on the whole wishful thinking about the quality of your life is often not self-fulfilling.</p>