We have to do something before our opponent does. When out of position, it sure is a great, profitable thing to have some idea of what our opponent is going to do if we check and what they will do if we bet. No matter how short a time you've been playing with your opponents, they will have given you some information, in code, that you should have been looking for, that you should have tried to decipher, that you should be able to use to better anticipate their action. Learning leads to codebreaking. Codebreaking leads to anticipation.
Anticipation leads to profitable action.