The antidote to summer comparison: Gratitude

Summer is often marketed as the season of ease. We picture slow mornings, poolside afternoons, and quiet evenings on the porch while the kids frolic outside in the setting sun. Unfortunately for many of us, it’s more often than not the season of comparison.

It sneaks in subtly. You’re scrolling through Instagram and suddenly feel behind. Everyone seems to be traveling somewhere beautiful, their toddlers in coordinating linen outfits, their kitchens gleaming with fresh quartz countertops and sunlit windows. The moms are thinner, the backyards bigger, the vacations longer and more exotic.

Maybe your summer doesn’t include a trip to the Amalfi Coast or a Fourth of July barbecue on a newly-refinished deck, but you still find yourself craving more. More space. A better body. A different life. Somehow, without realizing it, your peaceful summer afternoon becomes a silent inventory of what you don’t have.

For me, it manifested as obsessively scrolling Zillow. I was looking at homes we had no intention of buying: sunflower farms, suburban McMansions, the kinds of places where it looks like happiness lives. It was starting to poison my joy. Suddenly, my own home felt too small, too chaotic, too … lived in. The same kitchen where I make my daughter’s breakfast and the living room where my family gathers began to feel like placeholders. I forgot that they were already sacred spaces.

That’s when my spiritual director told me, gently but firmly: delete Zillow.

The virtue we need

Turns out, the issue wasn’t Zillow. The issue was my heart.

Comparison always distracts us from stewardship. We begin to look so far ahead toward our future hopes or someone else’s present that we forget what we’ve been entrusted with right now. Our homes, our families, our vocations, our bodies. All are sacred. All are assignments. All are enough.

But we live in a world that doesn’t want us to believe that. The digital age makes it dangerously easy to peek into someone else’s garden and believe it’s more fruitful. Amazon advertises what we don’t yet own. Instagram shows us what we’re not yet doing. Pinterest displays how much better our lives could look. Zillow? It promises a different version of life just a few clicks away.

And yet, chasing “better” often leaves us missing the “good” in front of us.

The digital age makes it dangerously easy to peek into someone else’s garden and believe it’s more fruitful.

Gratitude is the antidote. Not a naïve, “just be thankful” platitude, but a deep, muscle-building virtue that reorients us. Gratitude trains our eyes to see what comparison blinds us to. It roots us in the present and invites us to pause long enough to notice: This is beautiful. This is holy. This is enough.

The Christian life isn’t opposed to dreams or desires. It’s not a call to complacency. Nobody is expecting a family of 10 to comfortably live in a three-bedroom house. We are made to grow, to cultivate, to participate in renewal. But when our goals are rooted in restlessness, they breed discontent. And discontent will never be satisfied, no matter how many purchases arrive at your door with two-day shipping.

Gratitude is the antidote. Not a naïve, “just be thankful” platitude, but a deep, muscle-building virtue that reorients us.

Gratitude will change you

Someone will always be one step ahead. When you’re single, you’re wishing for the engagement ring. Once you have the ring, it’s the dream wedding. Then a baby. Then a bigger house. Then a new job. A second baby. A better wardrobe. A more aesthetic homeschool room. 

It never ends. Unless you choose to end it right now with gratitude.

When you look at your home and say, “This is a gift.”

When you look at your body and say, “Thank you.”

When you look at your slow, ordinary day and say, “God is here.”

Gratitude is how we stop running. It’s how we live with open hands, not clenched fists. It’s how we resist the endless tide of more and enter into the peace of enough.

So maybe this summer, it’s time to do more than just delete Zillow. Maybe it’s time to delete Amazon for a while. Log out of Instagram. Take Pinterest off your phone. Stop window shopping your way into discontent. Name what you’ve already been given. Ask God to help you love it well. Steward what’s in your hands before longing for what’s out of reach.

Gratitude won’t just change your summer; it will change your soul.

Kate is a passionate reader and writer who finds joy in exploring the boundless worlds of books and storytelling. She lives in the suburbs of Kansas City with her husband, their baby girl, and their old beagle-dachshund mix, embracing life’s simple pleasures: family adventures, creative pursuits, and the irresistible aroma of freshly baked sourdough. You can often find her at the library, in the adoration chapel, or up in the choir loft! Her favorite Marian apparition is Our Lady of Fatima, her favorite saint is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and she holds a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.