> If I forget to pack something when I go on vacation, the most it could possibly cost me is money
I was in an airline check-in queue behind some people who discovered they had left their passports at home. Cue near-coronary and marital strife. A relative had to break into their house and make a mad dash to the airport.
Yes, if I forgot my passport it might be a lot of money that it cost me. Maybe one day I'll forget my passport, but I rather doubt it. The exact same reasons that surgeons resist following an explicit checklist (which are terrible reasons if you're a surgeon) are perfectly fine for me because the stakes are much lower if I mess up, and in the mean time there are concrete benefits to winging it. It's a lot easier for those benefits to add up to be greater than then downside of a mistake when the mistake costs $2000 rather than someone's life.
I was in an airline check-in queue behind some people who discovered they had left their passports at home. Cue near-coronary and marital strife. A relative had to break into their house and make a mad dash to the airport.
(I'm also a checklist person)