Don't do what you're told. It never gets you anywhere.

Obedience or the lack of it is something we come across each and every day whether it comes in the form of commands, directions, orders or instructions. In order to be odedient the obeyer must be convinced that the person giving the orders is doing so legitimately otherwise it is not obedience. Obedience is when one follows orders voluntarily.

Adolf Eichmann was executed in 1962 following his trial in 1961 for his role in the Holocaust. He was the constructor of the transportation, the collection and the execution of those to be killed including Jews, gypsies, communists and trade unionists. At his trial in 1961 he was surprised that Jews, gypsies, communists and trade unionists hated him. He said that he had simply followed orders. In his journal written whilst in custody Eichmann wrote “The orders were, for me, the highest thing in my life and I had to obey them without question”.

Eichmann was declared sane by six different psychologists; he had a normal upbringing along with a normal family life, his colleagues and friends described as “a mentally average man”. This begs the question that we all could do this; something deep down inside of us if put in a similar situation would follow orders and obey them.

After the World War II, psychologists such as Stanley Milgram set out to test whether Germans were different. But he found that we are all very obedient to people in authority. In one of the very famous tests that Milgram did in psychology, one in particular demonstrated that most people would give weak and helpless victims electric shocks which could kill them when ordered to.

Like I said - doing what you're told never gets you very far.