We describe the departure from the model as an error. We might equally describe the model as a hopeful guess about us. Consider the second opinion. It is a small thing, and small things are where habits live. The honest conclusion is uncomfortable for reformers: people are not waiting to be corrected. Nobody sets out to be governed by the second opinion, yet it shapes an astonishing share of the ordinary day.
A better question
If you want to see effort at work, watch a queue form where there is no reason for one. The textbook treats effort as a preference to be revealed. In practice it is a story we tell ourselves after the fact. What looks like effort from the outside is usually something simpler from the inside: tiredness, a deadline, a wish not to look foolish. It is tempting to call this irrational. It is more useful to ask what it is for.
