“Must be nice” is what you say when you’ve stopped counting your own.

That phrase is a tell. It shows up when your eyes have been on somebody else’s situation long enough that your own has gone blurry, and it lets you dismiss their work and skip your own at the same time. Underneath it is usually not real anger at them, just the feeling that your own effort is not adding up.

When that sentence arrives, treat it as a signal rather than an opinion. Ask what you have stopped counting. Then say one honest thing instead: good for them, or I want that, or I am tired. Any of those leaves you somewhere you can actually move from.