Last week I was standing in my Aunt’s kitchen chowing down on smoked salmon pre-Easter dinner with three of my cousin’s. They are all in their twenties, ranging from 23 to 27. So I, at 20, was the baby of the bunch. We had been discussing life in NYC as all of use either live in, or commute to, the city. Suddenly, the conversation became a rant on how horrible the twenties are. Listening to them I learned:

• You can’t afford to live anywhere nice.
• You can’t find a job.
• When you do find a job it sucks.
• The dating scene is a cesspool.
• You are broke.
• The 2o’s should be rushed through as quickly as possible.

That seemed like a pretty grim picture.

I chimed in that I thought they were being very cynical. In the cheesiest way possible, I  love life so much that I literally start smiling and laughing spontaneously, in public, alone… I thought that my positive outlook might lighten the mood. Quite to the contrary, all heads whipped in my direction and I was very quickly told “Not to share that with people, bragging is rude.”

Let me get this straight, you can host your own pity party and that’s fine but actually being happy is a crime?

But seriously, I have read about how tough it is for young people now-a-days but I had never been bombarded with that reality in person. I love my cousins and I don’t want this to be read as an attack on them personally. Rather, I feel like they were exhibiting a behavior that young people are being prompted to exhibit. Only a few months ago Newsweek asked “Generation Screwed?” on the cover of one of their last print issues. When surrounded with stories of unemployment, underemployment, and general misery, I get that it could be hard to stay out of the mud.

However, a quick Google search reveals thousands of young people around the world doing amazing things that people couldn’t have even dreamt of a decade ago. Young people may be having a tough time, but we are also revolutionizing tech, healthcare, education, philanthropy, and so much more. Just a few weeks ago, I was a SXSW and was surrounded by optimism, excitement, and innovation. At one point I was sitting at a coffee shop across from a friend. We both looked up from our computer screens at the same time, smiled, and started laughing.

Life is awesome. However, life can seem pretty crappy if you surround yourself with people who are negative and pessimistic. It scares me that my cousins, a group of individuals who I respect highly, could so easily get sucked into a point-of-view that is toxic to success.

What is the solution? Surround yourself with people who challenge you to constantly better yourself personally and professionally. Use simple life hacks to cut down on the stress that is always going to be there, use the time you have saved to do something silly. Finally, take a moment everyday to look around and recognize that fact that your existence is magical.