Justin.tv founder Justin Kan wrote a recent TechCrunch guest post describing the current state of employment for the millennial generation.

Here were a few of his talking points that begin to describe what it’s like to be part of Generation Y.

• The system is broken: No longer can you go to school, get good grades, graduate with a job in hand and move up the corporate ladder. This rise to the top no longer applies to our generation; The system is broken.
  • • Millions of young millennials are unemployed or under-employed, according to Scott Gerber of The Young Entrepreneur Council.
• Our generation aspires to control our own destiny: To steal Justin’s own words, we’re “autonomous, impatient … refuse to pay our dues … hate the idea that we should ever be beholden to someone else.”
  • • We are like this because we have been abandoned by the instituions that should have embraced us. From an inefficient government run by elder statesmen politicians who don’t understand technology to corporations that turned their backs on us following college graduation, negating on their promise of jobs post-graduation for those who worked hard to get their degree.
• We are a generation of passionate makers and creators: The words “why?” and “why not?” seem to exist within our vocabulary to act as legitimate answers to “nobody has ever tried doing it this way” and “you can’t do things that way.”
  • • “Why not?” has become an invitation to challenge the current way of getting something done.

Embracing Innovation

Innovation takes place when some courageous individual defies popular belief and begins operating in a completely different manner than anybody else in their marketplace.

Think it’s a mystery why consumers jumped up and gobbled the iPod when it first came out, even though Apple was years behind the competition in releasing an MP3 playing device?

That Box and DropBox surpassed SharePoint as the most widely used cloud storage solutions in less than five years?

Absolutely Not!

The chiefs at Apple, Box & DropBox set out with a vision that was bigger in scope that their existing market. The absolute disregard for the state of their current industry led them to take actions, create products and push consumers in ways that nobody else could have predicted.

Instead of following a set of broken rules established by an elder generation that could no longer support their existence, these companies offered their products and services in ways that had never been thought of before.

So What Does This Mean For You?

It means you should dedicate some time to reevaluate the way that your life is headed.

Ask yourself a few simple questions:

• Am I truly happy where I am at right now personally, professionally and morally?
• If I could do anything in the world, what would that be?
• When I look back on my life in one month, one year, one decade, etc … How will I view the decisions that I made? Will recalling these decisions make me beam with pride or stew in regret — and why?

We, the Millennial, are one hell of a generation. It’s time to show the world what we’re made of by re-writing the rules.