I once read a statement that said, "Comparison is the death of Contentment."  This has more truth to it than we can even imagine.  The Bible gives us a clear picture of why contentment is important.  Proverbs 14:30 says, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."  1 Timothy 6:6 says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." 

Of course the Bible commands in various scriptures, to not be envious or jealous of what others have.  This is often hard to do especially if you are comparing what you have to what others have.  I am not just talking about things.  The most dangerous thing a parent can do is compare their children to other children.  Not only will this steal their contentment it will breed self esteem issues in your children. It is very unwise for one spouse to compare their spouse to someone else's spouse.  Most often when we compare what we have to others, we are comparing their best to our worst, and it is does not give us a true picture.  Our pastor often says that if the grass looks greener on the other side, it is probably over a septic tank. 
 
Most often when we are making our comparisons, we are using selective blindness.  I have to really work on not comparing what we are doing in our homeschool to what others are doing.  Of course I have to check things out to make sure we are covering the basics, but I can easily get discouraged trying to figure out how they have an hour a day to spend on Bible, get all their other required work done and still have time to throw in latin.  My children are different and learn at a different pace and I can not allow myself to get discouraged with that.  Of course when I look at others schedules, I am only selectively seeing the best part of it and maybe not hearing the struggle they have with other areas of the schedule. 

I once had a friend comment to me that I could not understand the struggle she was having in her marriage, because mine was a perfect marriage. Hello, my marriage consists of 2 sinners, that makes it far from perfect.  Obviously we have our own struggles in our marriage, all she saw was the results of those struggles after they were worked out.  We do have a great marriage, but it is because we choose to make it a priority, we try to never let the sun go down on our anger, and we communicate in a loving manner with each other (most of the time.)  The point is you can't just selectively look at the good on the other side of the fence.  

The people who long to have a bigger home like so-and-so, most likely doesn't realize how much more work a bigger home is.  Just keeping a bigger home clean is more work and time, keeping a bigger yard is more sweat and money etc.  I am sure when we are fantasizing about these "better" things, we don't think about the negative that comes along with it.
 
We have to remember why we chose our spouse and focus on their positive qualities instead of their negative.  We have to see our children's strengths and not dwell on their weaknesses.  (After all, we have faults and weaknesses too, do we want others dwelling on them all the time?) God has given us the home and all the material possessions we have, do you think He appreciates it when we are discontented with His blessings?  

While comparison is the death of contentment a positive attitude is the life of peace and joy. 
Take time to do an attitude check and see if you're killing your contentment or living with peace. 

Staying the narrow path, have a blessed day!