The Iron Curtain had fallen; there was hope for Russia to become a democracy, and the weight of living in fear of dying in a nuclear war was lifted. China was becoming, perhaps not democratic, but at least economically liberal.
The economy was doing reasonably well for most people - it wasn't the high inflation of the eighties, and 2008 was not yet on the horizon. It wasn't yet the two-level economy that it became - if you were lower class, there was still a plausible route to the middle class.
AIDS was becoming manageable rather than a death sentence. Climate change wasn't really on people's radar as a real worry yet - there wasn't a sense of doom about it.
There was still hope that technology would free and empower us rather than enslave us.
And no, I wasn't a teenager or in my early twenties. Though I did have a pretty sweet life then...