How to compare if a date is greater than other?

Question

I am taking the current date in ymd format as below :

  String date = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd", Locale.getDefault()).format(new Date());

I also have a date as String as below :

String futureDate = "2022-03-07"

How can I know if the current date is less than or greater than future date ?

I tried to use compareTo() function, but was unable to compare the two dates.