Opening paragraphs......................

Life is full of decisions and judgments and guesses, and it gets to the point where you're so accustomed to making them you keep right on making them even when you don't strictly need to.  You get into a what if thing, and you start speculating about what you would do if some problem was yours instead of somebody else's.  It gets to be a habit.  It was a habit Jack Reacher had in spades.  Which was why he was sitting alone at a restaurant table and gazing at the backs of two guys twenty feet away and wondering if it would be enough just to want them off or if he would have to go the extra mile and break their arms.

-Lee Child,  Running Blind