Sitting in the left seat means that the final decision is yours - you are responsible for the safety of your passengers, crew and aircraft. BGO. Why you get paid the big bucks; or in our case not so big as we were an independent outfit with a tightfisted attitude. You get it right - no comment; get it wrong you have to answer for it. BGO again, but that is the nub of all aviation.
Our Chief Pilot was a good egg despite his light blue background; as may be obvious I was of the sort that operated from short runways that went up and down and having a hook helped to stop - before the vertical arrival sort took over. He always said that while in the cruise and starting to get bored perhaps, or at any time , ask yourself the question "What if ?" Ask the co, get his views and discuss. That way in the event of an unforeseen problem or nasty occurring you may just have already considered it. Not a bad philosophy and one that I remember still and use when sailing. The other good egg bit was that he flew all company types of which there were many - from props to heavies - and during his career managed to bend one of each type. As a result he was aware that all pilots are human and as such are capable of making the odd mistake. Having the rudder lock(external, pole with flag ) presented to him after arrival on chocks at destination at night by the chock jock was just one of his better ! Fortunately nothing bent on that one other than the pole in the slipstream.
Thread drift not withstanding some things never change. Unfortunately incidents and accidents will continue to happen due the nature of human frailty, be it from design, materials, maintenance, environmental issues, human error or any of the myriad combinations whereby all the holes in the cheese line up.
Keep on keeping the blue side up always helps !