Judgment day...

In hula class lately, as we've finished learning the dance we've been working on for a few months, Kumu (not his name; it means master, teacher. see, you get a language lesson here too!) has been splitting us up, directing half of us to dance while the other half watches. This can be unnerving, especially if you end up in the front row of your group, as I often do, simply by virtue of where you stand in class.

It's helpful to have danced on stage many times in the past. I've long known how to employ the technique of looking just over the heads of your "audience" so you don't get hung up in the "omigod, people are watching me, don't screw this up" thought pattern. You lose focus if you start watching people watch you. I do, anyway.

But I found myself doing something while I was watching the other group dance: judging. I was starting to feel pretty good about myself, realizing that I knew the steps better than many of my classmates, and noted that some of them were simply doing them wrong. I also realized why I feel like I'm getting such a great workout in this class, aside from my less-than-desirable fitness level: many of my classmates are not going all-out when they dance.

And then I felt terrible, when I realized what I was doing. This class is supposed to be for fun. We're all there for different reasons. It's not a competition. Why was I sitting there comparing myself to my classmates? Not only is it against the whole concept of Aloha Spirit and sister/brotherhood Kumu talks about, it's just petty.

Then it occurred to me that we do this in life all the time. We compare the way we live our lives with those around us, our appearance, our relationships, our possessions, our careers... everything.

It doesn't seem healthy to me. It leads to envy. Or smug superiority. Life's not a competition either (at least, it's not supposed to be), so why do we do this to ourselves? Why can't we just focus on our own stuff?

Or is this just natural? Is it something that's innate to the human condition and can't be helped?

I dunno. I'm gonna try, though.