Dear Young People,

It's winter. The heady autumn of Occupy Everywhere is now last year's news. Mitt Romney says corporations are people. Newt says government doesn't make jobs, private enterprise makes jobs. All politicians are promising jobs. None of that helps if you don't have a job.

A young man interviewed on NPR has a job. He says his company doesn't represent him politically. He says his company doesn't have the right to use the profits it makes on HIS WORK to vote against him.

Perhaps you gave gone into debt (like the country) to get an education and you still can't find a job. You are bummed, and rightly.

This is all pretty discouraging stuff. But wait. Start from another perspective.

The government doesn't need you. No corporation or small business needs you. The jobs they may or may not offer can be filled by you or by someone else, interchangeably.

But the world needs you. There is no one else in the world who has exactly what you have to give.

In my post of December 11, 2011, Advent and Jobs, I asked, “Who decides what my work will be?” If you're young and you don't yet have dependents, you have a chance to give the finger to The Market and decide for yourself.

This is not easy, and I have no illusions that it will be possible for everyone. But I write this in hope and in the belief that looking clearly at the problem is a good start. So before you take that job as a “greeter” or as an “associate”, think about the work you want to do. All work – however strange and useless it may appear to The Market, is worthy of your human dignity if it comes from the heart. So try to make time – quiet time – to listen to that voice inside – and it will come, but it is a soft voice – that will tell you about the work that you are meant to do, the work that will be your vocation. Then fight for it with all your might.

I don't know how you're going to do it. I would tell you, but I know the solution is unique to you and I am not privy to it. What I do know is you might have to ask for help. It could be as little as asking a parent, sibling, or friend with a credit card to pay $2.95 to iPage or $3.15 to FatCow every month so you can have your own website. Set it up with WordPress and you can work on it anytime you have access to a computer and WIFI. It may take a year or two to learn the ropes and find out how to attract people to your site and figure out what you are selling or giving away. At the end of the second year you owe your parent, sibling, or friend $72.

Then who knows? When Mitt or Newt or even Barack gets around to offering you a job, you might just say no.