Want to know an American generation better suited for the term "lost?"   We have iPhones with GPS, google Maps and Earth to get us to places we're not even supposed to go, and facebook status and twitter updates so that our friends can know exactly where to meet us for lunch ten minutes before. And you're telling us that we're lost? Why not create an iPHONE application that brings up menus from trendy restaurants all over America? Yes we can! Remember America? Or have we already forgotten.

"Only 46% of people aged 16-24 had jobs in September, the lowest since the government began counting in 1948. The crisis is even hitting recent college graduates. "I've applied for a whole lot of restaurant jobs, but even those, nobody calls me back," says Dan Schmitz, 25, a University of Wisconsin graduate with a bachelor's degree in English who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Every morning I wake up thinking today's going to be the day I get a job. I've not had a job for months, and it's getting really frustrating."

The most redeeming part of the article is the explanation of how we've dug our own graves,

"Free-market economists favor removing obstacles to employment of the young, such as high minimum wages. ‘The government in some ways is contributing to this problem,’ says Kristen Lopez Eastlick, senior research analyst for the employer-backed Employment Policies Institute. She points out that the 40% hike in the federal minimum wage over the past two years made it less appealing to hire young workers. One possibility: Some U.S. states and European countries have enacted subminimum wages just for young people or people enrolled in apprenticeships."

Wasn't raising the minimum wage one of the first things you voted for if you did ever vote on a state-wide ballot? True and terrible. It should also mention our almost genetic predisposition towards procrastination. That's also helped us to destroy ourselves. College taught us to wait the night before to write a paper. It works well when "reality" lasts approximately sixteen weeks. In real life it sorts of just keeps going. Procrastination leads to burial and bones.

We can't just "get a job" anymore. You have to get an internship first. Which means you have to work free for six months--or more. Employers are able to dangle the mere possibility of real employment to add to our Facebook and Linked In profiles: another trophy next to the "top twenty school."

The article ends with a beam of sunshine blasting through the despairing clouds placed above our heads,

"The unemployment crisis among the young is not as dramatic as the financial crisis of a year ago. But it may turn out to have longer-lasting effects." Nevermind, the light of hope was the second to last sentence. The last sentence warns us of the hot coals soon to pour.

Now the unemployment crisis can be the best thing that ever happened to the "Lost Generation” because it forces us out of the spoiled complacency that we were brought up with in the 1990's: Pokemon cards and tamagatchis are a thing of the past. It makes us talk to our friends about website ideas rather than about the last "The Hills" episode; it brings us closer to our families and ourselves when we realize that no one is going to help us but ourselves and--maybe-- those who we sprung from, because we're definitely moving back in; it makes us realize that the four years of college were not worth all of the time and money we invested--it helped us socially conform, how to take advantage and ignore the availability of excessive resources, coddling support, and a wealth of other brilliant, creative thinkers who want to be known for doing something for this world just as much as you do. The only thing that makes us lost is that damn addictive J.J. Abrams' show.

Luckily there are social networking sites. So here's the deal: stop emailing whip-holders at two-hundred year old companies that see you as a piece of veal-meat: start to get back into contact with your friends from college and high school. Round them up and start a website, at least a blog; get a group of friends together who want to teach English in China, Japan, India, Turkey, Brazil, or any other country that seems appealing; and don't just get a job that you're going to hate until you can successfully pay off your student loans: figure out what you love and then figure out how to do it for the rest of your life. Don't start later, start now. Use one another! There has never been a greater time than now to work outside of the box--the lid has been blown right off. Now crawl out of your dark, obsolete expectations of success, blink at the light of day, and step out into a brave new day.