I seem to spend a fair amount of time doing 'what if' thinking. During commutes, boring meetings, or other times you have to be somewhere physically but not mentally. I'll pick a topic and think about what my response should be. Then I'll change some variables and think about how that would affect my initial response. Sometimes I will even go through the motions of a response to see if things worked in real life like I thought they would.

Professionals in all sorts of physical activities train so they have 'default moves' - the thing to do when you don't have time to decide what to do. The more things you have a well defined default action for, the better off you will be.

Now for an example. You are driving and you look to one side and see someone in an adjacent car pointing a gun at you. What do you do? Do you do it something different in heavy or light traffic? Stopped at a light. Passengers in your car? Freeway or City streets?

I had this happen to me about 15 years ago. He was in center lane, I was in right lane. He'd been tailgating me for several blocks and finally pulled along side. I looked over to see a pistol pointed at me. I was at an intersection, so I hit the brakes and made a quick right turn and another a few blocks down and the guy never caught up to me (pre cell phone days). Was what I did necessary? I have no idea, but I do know I didn't get shot.

I have survived three mugging attempts, one office rampage (ex-employee came in with a gun and was waving it around), and numerous cases of idiocy on the road - all without mishap and largely because of having thought about what my reactions would be in advance.

Does anyone else do this sort of thing?