The man and the snake

I just read this story and I know how it made me feel, but what about you?

A man from India was condemned to spend the night in a prison cell with a poisonous snake. If the man made the slightest movement, the snake would kill him. So all night the man stayed awake in the corner of the cell, terrified to even breathe.

As the first light of dawn broke in the cell, the man could gradually make out the shape of the snake, he was relieved not to have stirred it. Then as dawn approached, the cell grow brighter still, until he saw that it wasn’t a snake at all, but a pile of old rope.
What does this story mean to you?