What have you done with your life? What white lies, what little exaggerations do you tell yourself and your parents about your fancy life here in the big city? How close have you come to measuring up to those early dreams of success? Don't worry if this line of questioning is making you feel uncomfortable: You are not alone. But why not take that uncomfortable feeling and use it for motivation? Don't give up, give in... TO THE POWER OF ENVY.
(And maybe next year you can be on this list. Heh.)

Paul Dano, 25, Actor
Anna Kendrick, 24, Actor
Zachary German, 20, Writer
Tea Obreht, 24, Writer
Simon Rich, 25, Writer
Alex Gartenfeld, 23, Editor
Amelia Lester, 26, Editor
Michael Schmidt, 25, Reporter
Karen Archey, 24, Freelance Curator
Thomas Beard, 25, Programmer
Mark Essen, 23, Artist
Bee Shaffer, 22, Scion
Alexander Wang, 25, Designer
The Drums, Band
Anthony Volodkin, 24, founder The Hype Machine
Charles Hamilton, 22, Rapper
Wordspit, 24, Rapper
Eric Ulrich, 24, Councilmember
Frances Villar, 26, Mayoral Candidate
Michael del Zotto, 19, Hockey Player
Robert Hess, 18, Chess Grandmaster
Mike Pelfrey, 25, Pitcher
Jonathan Groff, 24, Actor
Lea Michele, 23, Actress
Allison Case, 25, Actress

FILM
Paul Dano, 25, Actor
There are plenty of hot young actors in this city, but we seriously envy Dano's life (it doesn't hurt that we see him around DUMBO occasionally, for live envy). He got his big break in Little Miss Sunshine, the hugely popular Oscar-winner—still, ugh. But he followed it up with two parts in There Will Be BloodNew Yorker—yay! And he recently lived the dream of every Brooklyn hipster by voicing a character in Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. And he's dating Zoe Kazan; even if you don't think she's attractive, she probably has great stories about her grandfather. (We won't tell you who that is because, unlike some people, we don't name names.)

FILM
Anna Kendrick, 24, Actor
By the time she was 12, Kendrick had been nominated for a Tony. Five years later, she was onstage at City Opera. Now she has a sizeable part in The L, Jason Reitman's George Clooney-starring, Oscar-buzz-generating follow-up to Juno. Remember what that movie did for Ellen Page? And look how that turned out. Oh, right— Whip It.

LETTERS
Zachary German, 20, Writer
We don't really want to be the writer that German is, but being 20 years old with a book coming out from Bear Parade/Random House and having a cool name equals lots of chicks. And unlike the formerly envious, now piteous Jonathan Safran Foer, German doesn't have the albatross of a $2 million advance around his neck and may just make it out of his early twenties alive.

LETTERS
Tea Obreht, 24, Writer
Obreht's debut, a short story called "The Tiger's Wife" published in The New Yorker this June, was praised by everyone from The L editors to our mother. (We don't really talk to anyone else.) She's blogged for The New Yorker, too, and she's got a novel coming next year, now that she's earned her MFA from Cornell—maybe you've heard of it?

LETTERS
Simon Rich, 25, Writer
We read two things every week: The New Yorker and Frank Rich's column. So imagine how jealous we are of Simon Rich, who is not only the Sunday Times columnist's son, and thus basks in his paternal love, but who has been published in our favorite magazine! (After The International Socialist Review of course.) And who's in roughly the same advertising demographic as us! A former president of The Harvard Lampoon and a current writer at Saturday Night Live, he's published two comedy collections and has a novel coming next year. Our novel—about a young film critic at a small culture magazine, navigating his way through love, Brooklyn and diabetes—probably isn't coming out any time soon. (Cough, cough, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, cough, cough.) WE ENVY YOU SIMON RICH!

MEDIA
Alex Gartenfeld, 23, Editor
Only a year out of Columbia, Gartenfeld is the online editor at Interview Magazine, as well as Art in America. But it's not his ladder climbing in the media world that intimidates us most: it's that he's the kind of kid trendspotters stop in the street to interview and photograph for their websites. Someone took a picture of us standing on a corner in DUMBO once, but we think it was to include in a collection of American grotesques.

MEDIA
Amelia Lester, 26, Editor
Ok, so this is a bit of cheat, we know, but c'mon, 26 in New Yorker years is like 14 in the rest of the world, and managing editor, seriously? We've been dreaming of a New Yorker gig since we were, like, 14, and we figured we'd have to win a Pulitzer to even get an interview (or intern at the Paris Review, which... we're just not that pretty). Amelia Lester, we really, truly, purely envy you.

MEDIA
Michael Schmidt, 25, Reporter
Any old gig at the Times ain't nothing to sneeze at, but Schmidt's got something better: he's on the steroids beat, the biggest story in sports, and he's not only been covering it for about two years, but breaking some of the biggest controversies of the decade: Sammy Sosa. Manny Ramirez. David Ortiz. He started out as a coffee fetcher. So did we, and we ain't breaking no national stories. Our only consolation is that his medium is dying.

ART
Karen Archey, 24, Freelance Curator
Archey cut her teeth as an editor for Art Fag City (full disclosure!). But she has since moved on to become a curator about town—well, about the country: she's currently working on a show in Sacramento that showcases photography by Downtown artists. Meanwhile, she continues to write: for AFC, Art in America and MAP Magazine, including a piece on lecture-based performance art that got a thumb's up from no less than Jerry Saltz('s Facebook page), the Christgau/Hoberman of the Art World! (Christgau/Hoberman being like the, umm, Charles Barkleys of the music/film critic world.)

ART
Thomas Beard, 25, Programmer
With Ed Halter, Beard developed and continues to oversee Sunset Park's Light Industry, a popular venue for experimental film and other contemporary "time-based media." Beard has also organized programs for MoMA and several other spaces. And he's been published in catalogues across the globe, not to mention magazines like Film Comment. As one editor here said when he heard Beard might be on the list: "Shit, [he's only] 25?" Shit indeed.

ART
Mark Essen, 23, Artist
Less than a year after earning his BA from Bard, the Brooklyn-based artist's video game Flywrench (which involves guiding a wrench through treacherous caves) was included in the New Museum's Generational exhibition, making him an overnight Pop(ulist) art star with high culture cred and massive mainstream appeal. Since then Essen's been developing a commercial version of Flywrench, and creating more trippy, quirky and retro video games on his site messhof.com, like Cowboyana, in which two players face off in a series of shootouts and whiskey shot-pouring contests.

FASHION
Bee Shaffer, 22, Scion
Some might suggest that the only daughter of Anna Wintour is not to be envied (Mommy wears Prada?), but let's be honest—wouldn't it be pretty cool to have Mario Testino fly in to take your picture? Or, you know, have Karl Lagerfeld design a unique outfit for you? Yes. The answer is yes. And though Shaffer has quite admirably tried to avoid the appearance of nepotism as she's begun her media career, it's hard to look past that first line on her resume: Contributing Editor at Teen Vogue.

FASHION
Alexander Wang, 25, Designer
Wang produced the Coco duffel, the handbag of this fall, one of the season's most sold-out accessories; that Mary-Kate Olsen was spotted toting it about helped generate its astounding buzz. Add to that his sold-out shoe collection, his popular clothing line, and the numerous awards he's stacked up (that come with cash prizes!) and he becomes the envy of every dedicated follower of fashion.

MUSIC
The Drums, Band
It's no secret that competition for bands in this city is stiff: It's not uncommon for one to spend years toiling in the trenches of no-name venues playing for only a handful of friends before anyone else takes notice. It was in this climate that two surf buddies from Florida waltzed into Brooklyn—their eyes wide, skin tanned—played one show at Cake Shop as part of NYC Popfest this May, and broke into indie rock's collective consciousness. Perhaps it wasn't as fanciful as we made it out to be here—both Jonathan Pierce and Jacob Graham had been in previous bands—but it did take the Drums only one New York show before blogs flooded with praise for their kitchy Joy Division-meets-Beach Boys surf pop. In an added twist, Graham helps run Holiday Records, the first to get behind another little buzz band called Surfer Blood. So, yeah, it's been a good year for the Drums.

MUSIC
Anthony Volodkin, 24, founder The Hype Machine
In a way, we don't really envy Anthony Volodkin at all. When the 24-year-old Russian immigrant started the website Hype Machine a few years ago, he probably had no idea he would wind up at the forefront of debates about the death of music criticism and the death of the music industry. But his site, which is an aggregator of the internet's best-known mp3 blogs, has put him in exactly that position. Why read a 1,000-word review when you can find an mp3 to listen to instead? Why buy a record when you can, um, find an mp3 to listen to instead? We might not always approve of how it makes people act, but man, do we wish we'd thought of it.

MUSIC
Charles Hamilton, 22, Rapper
This time last year Hamilton was the next big thing, with a record deal at Interscope and a spot in XXL's "Class of '09," but as the hype reached critical mass he disappeared. Recurring problems with abuse and addiction make him the most emotionally affecting rapper of his generation, but also very unpredictable. Interscope dropped him in September, but not before leaking the shelved album This Perfect Life to bloggers' delight. Feeding off that buzz, Hamilton is releasing a new mixtape, poignantly titled Normalcy, December 9. We don't envy him his issues, but they could help make him the most moving rapper since 2Pac.

MUSIC
Wordspit, 24, Rapper
From his frequent references to and samples from vintage video games, to the countless battle raps and freestyles posted to his YouTube channel and blog, this East New York MC strikes a nice balance between new school rappers' playful nerdcore sensibilities and a vintage, aggressive Brooklyn flow. That blend of styles has gotten Wordspit attention from an unusually broad set of blogs and magazines, including The Source and XXL, and though he hasn't parlayed that buzz into a record deal yet, his recent mixtape The Coolest Bboi Stance is about as good as any recent debut.

POLITICS
Eric Ulrich, 24, Councilmember
He's like the Kennedy of councilmembers—except he's a Republican. Well, nobody's perfect, but Ulrich has an impressive record of public service: he was already a civic association president and community board member, as well as a member of his local police precinct's community council, Knights of Columbus, and Kiwanis Club. In February, he won a special election to represent Rockaway Beach in the City Council and was reelected in November. Would that we had his sense of purpose.

POLITICS
Frances Villar, 26, Mayoral Candidate
Sure, anyone can run for mayor as long as they get enough signatures. We often sit at the bar and dream of our future political career and all the great speeches on race we'll deliver in Philadelphia. But it takes some enviable chutzpah to follow through in the sober light of day and actually do it. Villar, the youngest mayoral candidate on this year's ballot, emigrated from the Dominican Republic and, while attending college and raising a child, has worked as a student- and community-organizer. And she campaigned for mayor. We're lucky we show up for work three days a week.

SPORTS
Michael del Zotto, 19, Hockey Player
An inordinate number of Canadians work here at The L, which might account for how much we like del Zotto—who, like many of us, went from Canadian nobody to New York somebody. We work at a magazine. He plays defense for the New York Rangers. Fuck.

SPORTS
Robert Hess, 17, Chess Grandmaster
A student at Stuyvestant, Hess is a few days shy of his 18th birthday as this issue hits newsstands and he's already classified as a Grandmaster—the highest title in chess. A writer for Chess Life compared him to Bobby Fischer—in skill, not mental unbalance. We haven't won a single game of chess since 2006, when our intoxicated opponent missed several opportunities to capture our Queen.

SPORTS
Mike Pelfrey, 25, Pitcher
The Mets have 11 players on their roster under 25; we singled out Pelfrey not because of his stats (2-5 in his last 10 starts, with a 5.57 E.R.A., ain't exactly hall of famer-level playing) but because he has the best nickname: Big Pelf, which a blogger has turned into a profitable t-shirt enterprise.

THEATER
Jonathan Groff, 24, Actor
We don't much care for Groff: in Shakespeare in the Park's production of The Bacchae, he played Dionysus like the god of debauchery was a character on Gossip Girl. Still, we're impressed by his resume; that wasn't even his first time on the Delacorte's stage: He was in the previous year's production of Hair, and before that he starred in Spring Awakening on Broadway. To top it all off, he's soon to become a regular member of the Glee cast—the dream of every young New York stage actor. Fuck.

THEATER
Lea Michele, 23, Actress
Like Groff, Michele went from a starring role in Spring Awakening to a lead role in Glee. A hit Broadway show? A television cult phenomenon? It's not a bad C.V., but it pales in comparison to her most recent honor: a Teen Choice Award nomination! Double fuck.

THEATER
Allison Case, 25, Actress
We know what you're thinking: are there any young stage actors who aren't on Glee? Just a handful, one of which is Allison Case. Not only does she get to sing "Frank Mills" in the Hair revival banking it on Broadway, she's prominently featured in all of the show's advertising. If you couldn't be more jealous, she's also on a Mac commercial—the envy of every young person everywhere.