There's a peculiar trap hiding in your most useful mental models: the better they work, the more invisible they become. The Bhagavad Gita describes this through the concept of *svabhava* — the grooves of character that form through repeated action, eventually running so deep that they feel like nature itself rather than habit. Kahneman mapped the same territory from a different angle: System 1 thinking is fast precisely because it has stopped checking its own assumptions. The model that once helped you see clearly becomes the lens you forget you're wearing. Today, pick one framework you use constantly — 'I'm a big-picture thinker,' 'I trust data over intuition,' whatever your reliable workhorse is — and ask whether you're still choosing it or whether it's now choosing you.

Which of your mental models has been so consistently rewarded that you've stopped noticing when it doesn't fit?

Drawing from Indian Philosophy (Bhagavad Gita) — Daniel Kahneman / Bhagavad Gita (synthesized)