Instinct Counting....

Today I asked myself a question that left me puzzled. It is the question that occurred to me when there was an accident on the merging ramp. There was an accident on a two lane connecting ramp. On the right side of the ramp, a corolla had an accident, most likely to be caused by the wet surface of the asphalt since it was raining. The left lane was closed as there was a towing vehicle getting in position to tow the car. The Corolla probably had rammed against the side wall of the connector due to sliding, or in physics term : Kinetic friction. I was on the left lane of the connecting ramp and I was tempted to change lane to follow the rest of the traffic. However, I didn't.. Moments later, there was a car behind me that screeched to a halt next to me, again, the truck was sliding to a stop. 

I was thinking, if I had changed to the right, a fender bender would have been inevitable. I got lucky. My heart was pounding a million times a minute, I attempted to  calm myself down by taking several long breaths. This was when this series of thought suddenly gorge in like a dam slowly opening to harness the energy of the moving water. I had prevented the car from experiencing the third fender bender it would have gotten in the past 2 months. I got lucky! So, this leads me to the question of instinct counting. How do you measure the instinct that you have developed over the years? Instincts governs a lot of area of the human life. Be it a business decision, driving awareness, professional athleticism, or simply just an engineering problem that you face in the industry? How do you measure the accumulated instinct? 

The more I think about it, the more I believed that I wasn't just lucky. I had relied and chosen to follow the instinct;and I reacted accordingly. I'm talking about that split decision approach that you utilize in the moments before anything happens, not limited to just an accident. I remember a friend of mine once said before, the driving time that you have accumulated over the years will gift you a wonderful sense of instincts. In the split second, your body will recognize the situation and will act accordingly towards the approach that you're most comfortable with. I'm not saying that all the instincts that you have developed will work towards your advantage, sometimes this strategy may backfire! 

We live in a dynamic world where things changes constantly. We face different situations on an hourly basis and will eventually "store" these experiences on the back of our mind. When we face a similar situation occurring, we unconsciously "load" these memories, measure the importance of the results and decisively choose an exit strategy. Our brain is indeed the greatest creation on earth. We are given the ability to think and analyze our woes. This in turn gives us an opportunity to create and invent. But this is not always the case.. hahaha.. 

Anyway... I hope that you enjoy reading the analyzed version of my thought... next up will either be "bernoulli's relationship equation" or "importance me, ME ME ME!!!" haha, stay tuned for the update on my blog..