We all do it. Without even thinking, we compare our lives to the lives of others around us, the life we used to have, the life we wish we had, the life of a stranger on Instagram or another friend’s family vacation album on Facebook.

No matter who we are, what we’re doing, how beautiful or how flawed our lives are, we have a tendency to wish for something different — completely different than the life we have. We wish for some thing that would make all the other things easier. Something that would suit our personalities more. Something that would make our hearts happier.

We long for a place to live with nicer weather, better scenery, more bike trails, better cafes, interesting people and a thriving culture and economy.

We may even long to look a more beautiful, be more fit, dress more stylishly or have our homes decorated in a way that makes us feel better in our surroundings.

Maybe we long for more meaningful relationships, closer community or a sense of belonging.

But if there’s anything I’ve discovered from traveling, it’s that there are positives and negatives to every place you live in, every family dynamic, every body type, every city, every group of friends and every career path.

There is no perfect situation. There are no perfect people. And there certainly is no perfect place to live.

But it’s easy to be dissatisfied with what we have when we look around us and see the lives of others. I have both felt envy for another’s life and been envied for the life I have. I have felt inadequacy and lack, and I have unknowingly made others feel like their lives lacked and were inadequate in comparison to mine.

As I sit in on my computer in my little one bedroom apartment in the heart of Vienna, Austria with my kids in the next room, I’m reminded of the hilight reel we all choose to show the world.

Right now, after a long day of running around and meeting people and doing things yesterday and the day before and the day before that, my kids and I are taking it easy and having a lazy, Saturday morning with nothing planned. No obligations. No commitments. No priorities except rest. Silence. Stillness.

After we got up this morning around 8:30am, I left them for a few minutes and ran downstairs to the local grocery store to buy some food for the weekend (most grocery stores are closed on Sundays).

When I got to the store, in a hurry so as not to leave my kids too long, I immediately walked in and felt that the people around me were rude and unfriendly — not at all like the warm and smiling folks at my local neighborhood HEB close to my home in Austin. What happened? Nothing traumatic. Nothing memorable. Just an overall feeling of discomfort and awkwardness as I navigated my way through the store trying to quickly pick up things we needed and get back home.

People cutting in front of me, getting irritated at me when they had to walk around me. My cart was in the way of an employee who was trying to put things away. I walked up to a perfectly open line to have someone tell me the line was closed. I went through a self check-out line only to have the cashier on duty have to come over and scan his card to help me at least 8 times in one transaction. In that instant, I was the foreigner. And I was apparently doing everything wrong.

When I was on my way back to the apartment with all my groceries (that I had to carry for a block), I remembered the days of living here in my twenties and wishing, during those harsh, cold Austrian moments, that I was back in the comfort of my hometown in Kansas City, Missouri where people actually smiled at me when I smiled at them and where I knew what ingredients I needed and how to weigh my fruit and vegetables. I longed for those brief seconds where I knew I could ask someone if I couldn’t find something, and I was offered help with a smile instead of irritation and disdain.

Those moments, like I had this morning, were the moments that literally defeated me as a single, young person in the middle of a foreign city. And those moments were attempting to defeat me again in my forties on my way back to my apartment full of hungry, screen-happy children.

When I got back a few minutes later, my kids were still in their pajamas watching shows on their tablets. I fixed them breakfast. They were grumpy. We ate. They made a mess. I cleaned up they messes they had made. I refereed fights they had between each other and refolded their clothes in their suitcases and had to sniff my way through to figure out what was clean and what was dirty. I organized the place a little and made sure breakfast food was put away and the toilet didn’t continue to smell like vomit from the night my son puked everywhere.

Our morning was definitely uninteresting. Unworthy of photos or captions. And in most of my tired thoughts and feelings today, I have felt homesick and wishing we were back in our comfy home in Austin where I could do laundry with ease and plan the evening’s meal with excitement. Where I didn’t have to wonder and worry about the strange feelings I have with my in-laws or make sure we’ve got all we need to last us through the weekend.

On the flip side of this same coin, we are having a wonderful time and making memories that I can’t even explain. It is a time I’ll always cherish and something I hope we can repeat again in the not so distant future.

But in saying all of this, I am instantly reminded of the grass is greener syndrome. A syndrome I often have and think about. There’s a lot I miss about Vienna. There are a lot of things I wish I could do and people I wish I could see more often. There’s a slower-paced lifestyle and philosophy of living that I wish we could adopt more of.

But the heart of the matter remains: Those of us who have had the opportunity and privilege of living in another city or country other than our own will forever feel a longing for that place again long after we’ve left. In addition, we will always have to fight off the feeling that the grass must be greener there than wherever we find ourselves right now. At the same time, we will always have to work hard to teach ourselves to love where we are right now and be present in that place even though we are reminded, even daily, that it is not our home. In essence, we no longer belong anywhere. The only true belonging we feel has to do with the close relationships we hold near and dear to our hearts.