There is an almost irresistible temptation to choose one scenario over the other: to say, in effect, "This is the future which we believe will take place. The other futures are interesting. But they're irrelevant. We're going to follow this scenario." [...] Unfortunately, reality does not follow even the best-thought-out scenario. The point of scenario-planning is to help us suspend our disbelief in all the futures: to allow us to think that any one of them might take place. Then we can prepare for what we don't think is going to happen.

—Peter Schwartz, The Art Of The Long View: Planning For The Future In An Uncertain World, p. 195 (notes)