When I scroll and see others with bigger houses and better lives, I feel like I’m falling behind. How do I stop comparing?
What you are describing is not a flaw in your character. It is what happens to anyone placed in front of an endless, glowing window. That screen was built to show you the polished surface of a thousand lives at once, and no one was made to carry a thousand comparisons in a single afternoon.
Allah gave this same instruction to the Prophet himself, peace be upon him, which tells you that the feeling is human and the remedy is close at hand.
“And do not extend your eyes toward that by which We have given enjoyment to some categories of them, the splendor of worldly life by which We test them. And the provision of your Lord is better and more enduring.”
Qur’an, Ta-Ha 20:131 · meaning
Notice what He calls it: the splendor of worldly life, a flower that opens bright in the morning and folds by evening. The same guard over the gaze is placed in another verse too.
“Do not extend your eyes toward that by which We have given enjoyment to certain categories of them, and do not grieve over them, and lower your wing gently to the believers.”
Qur’an, Al-Hijr 15:88 · meaning
Let me be honest with you about this second verse, Because honesty is part of the comfort. The grief mentioned there, as the commentators before us explain, is the Prophet’s sorrow over the people who turned away from his message, not sorrow over what they owned, and I will not stretch a verse further than it was sent. But the first half speaks straight to you and to me: do not stretch your eyes toward what has been placed in another’s hands. If so gentle a guard was set over the purest gaze, your tired eyes at the end of a long scrolling day deserve that mercy too. And the wing of kindness the verse asks for at its close, you may fold that around your own heart as well as around the believers beside you.
Then the Prophet, peace be upon him, put a remedy in your hand simple enough for a child to hold, and it turns the whole comparison around.
“Look at those who are below you, and do not look at those who are above you, for it is more fitting that you should not belittle the favours of Allah upon you.”
The Prophet (peace be upon him), Sahih Muslim (2963c) · meaning
Those who study the human heart today have arrived near the same place: people who spend their hours looking upward at brighter lives report more envy and less contentment, while those who make a habit of counting what they already have often find the weight lifting. You were not falling behind. You were facing the wrong window. Turn the gaze downward in gratitude and upward only to your Lord, and the race dissolves, because the One whose opinion matters has already given you a great deal.
One small step: Tonight, before you sleep, name three quiet gifts you already hold that someone else is praying for, and thank Allah for each by name.