the power of belief

We sat around, my friends and I, at the table in the back of the classroom - Science 10 if you cared to know. Drowning out the teachers mindless babble about some physics nonsense. This is how we spent every class - correction every class in which we didn't have a test; then we passed notes.

The class dragged on and we continued our breathless whispering of tales from French class. I always wondered why the teacher ignored our disobedience - probably because the bunch of us were still managing to get the highest marks in the class.
Well getting back to the point, we sat around exchanging stories (cough gossip) and then we spotted a beaker sitting on the counter behind us. One of the more obnoxious of our group stated that they could easily down the contents of the beaker. I, being the self absorbed teenager I am, couldn't possibly be out done. So doing the natural thing, I stuck my finger into the mystery substance and proceeded to lick it off my finger. Triumphantly I smiled at the group.

They stared at me in what I thought was mock horror. Until I noticed the beaker was labeled with some acid looking compound.

My heart dropped. My tongue began to burn immensely! I felt as if thousands of little paper cuts were being torn open in my mouth.
I was torn, tell the teacher of my idiotic move or not and continue with the pain. Before I could tell my obnoxious (even more so after this occurrence) friend confessed for me. The class erupted in laughter. My teacher got up and picked up the beaker.

There I was, dieing of describable pain and he was picking up the bloody beaker? He turned to me with that lopsided smile he was famous for. Turns out "dihydrogen monoxide", H20 or more commonly known as water isn't known for causing searing pain.
I thought I had been dieing...from drinking water.

This goes to show that belief is extremely powerful. The power of belief can cloud our judgment and take control of our sense. The mind is easily swayed into showing the results we believe should come. In my opinion, when facing any situation one should look outside one's own belief system. I think that this allows us to see clearly before deciding if any of our beliefs hold true in that situation.