Mrs. B,

I rolled a boulder over my foot cutting off a toe and crushing some others, this on top of a mountain in Utah.  I was with a few friends at the time.  While 2 of them went for help one stayed with me and helped me get off the mountain.  He carried my backpack and guided me down off the mountain.  He'd say traverse 20 feet and slide down, etc.  My life was pretty much in his hands.  I was in some pain and had to hold my leg out stretched while climbing down.  At one point I had slid down on some gravel to the edge of  drop off and sat there waiting to get my nerve up to do whatever Gary said next.  Each time he'd say traverse left or slide down or whatever I tried to comply.  

As I sat there he yelled heads up!   I immediately looked up.  Gary almost hurt himself laughing.  I was so dependent on his commands that I just looked up rather than realizing that he'd loosened some rocks and they were headed my way so I should look out for them.  

As you can see, there are times when you blindly follow instructions because your life depends on them or you simply get used to following.

I don't think we'd be able to make it through Kansas City without our Garmin.  It tells us which lane to get into and it warns us miles ahead.  However we aren't going to drive into a river or into a tree just because it says turn.  In Austin we were on I35 and didn't realize we needed to take an exit so we could cross I35 to our Motel.  Garmin was undeterred though and kept telling me to turn left in spite of the concrete barrier between north and south bound traffic.  We just waited until we got to the next exit and then Garmin became rational again.