cooking using new recipe's

can u cook to instructions?

I mean, I am sure a lot of people a lot of time feel like trying out new stuff [hey, we're talking food here?!]....and now-a-days coz of the internet/info age/world wide web/etc....getting new recipe's is 'just a click away' [well, technically cant be just one click but it sounded right...try saying it aloud...go on...]
anywayz..the point is..its become a lot easier to get new recipe's. I am especially more driven now to try new stuff than used to be [we are still on food mind you]. I've always had days when the morning came with inspiration to cook-up a new dish. But it wasnt always easy to get hold of the 'how to' make the new dish. Mummy darling-never the enthusiast- didnt really have a lot of cook-books [read 1!]...and my friends circle wasnt [and dont think will ever be!] the recipe-exchanging types, aaaand then I wasnt the talking-to-neighbouring-aunties-over-tried-and-tested-recipe's type of a person!
so you see...trying a new dish was a bit of work...and me and work never really got along :)

now, you'd think having the internet would solve my problmes, wouldnt you? atleast in terms of the scouting-for-recipe part. I will agree that it does...but the story doesnt end there [stories mostly don't end that easily, do they?].
the problem now is - sticking to the recipe!!
I find myself absolutely incapable of cooking to instruction. do what you may, I just cannot seem to cook from what I see! and it isnt even a matter of not liking the bloody recipe....liking what I see is always the precusor to the decision to cook...always! sensible right? hence the bewilderment at the incapacity.
not having the required ingredients isnt the pressing constraint either. I've have gone as far as removing the keeping out and aside the ingredients in their required measurement, using measuring cup,spoons,weighing scale et al...the works if you will....but come cooking time I am doing my own thing! changing the order of ingredients, putting in less than suggested, adding new ingredients, sometimes going as far as eliminating a suggested item coz 'it doesnt feel right'....

on one hand I can go on chewing on this behavioural strand...on the other I can call it quits and label this as being "individualistic" !!

what do you think?