Dick Sutphen in his book, Radical Spirituality, listed 69 reminders and asserted they were the only Bible anyone needed. Number 50 was, “Refuse to make choice based upon the expectations of others. Instead, act in ways consistent with your purpose.” Out of the 69 reminders, this one, if followed uncritically, could cause a great deal of trouble for a person in this world. Sometimes, not telling someone, like an authority figure, what they want or expect to hear, could be quite problematic. What is Creator’s perspective?

We would say this is a good example of the danger of having a set of rules to follow that might be more case-specific, with respect to current circumstances, than a general policy. The latter is usually assumed to be the best first choice to consider, but when it is very case-specific, to assume one will do one's best following the rules might well get them into trouble and cause their plans to backfire unexpectedly. Here again is the dilemma of living divinely in a non-divine world. You have so many circumstances that are non-ideal where things are out of balance, administered unfairly, and being in situations where you are expected to perform to someone else's standards, and who will perhaps rank you arbitrarily if you don't do things their way, so taking the initiative might cause you to be punished, rather than rewarded, if you do something even innovative that is advantageous. So we understand the impulse to have ways of navigating, to consider the consequences in ways that help you to be yourself and to honor and respect yourself for who you truly are. That is important for personal health and well-being, emotionally as well as spiritually, but like every good intention, it might be followed and adhered to, to a fault, when an exception to the principle might be more prudent and called for given that one is dealing with people who are not themselves enlightened and one might come to harm risking their displeasure. These are simply practical imperatives in the world you inhabit. Sometimes, it is appropriate to even sacrifice the self to act in a principled fashion true to your beliefs and the highest divine expectations, but there are times as well when "discretion is the better part of valor," and refusing to bend to the will of others might actually be done in service to the ego, enabling you to feel superior, and that can backfire in a way that will make you the loser in the end. So we are not proposing you surrender your principles, but sometimes you must behave in a way that is appropriate for the context of the moment. But if you consider the energetic equation always in the potential outcomes of any choices, with respect to what is gained and what is lost by the respective parties, and do this in an objective fashion leaving ego aside, you will have a way to navigate that will serve you better than a set of rules that might fit some situations but not others.