The phrase “got it done” is one that I loathe. And all its variations too. It is brazen and soulless, the battle cry of a ideology suggesting we are only what we produce, our lives reducible to a task list and its check marks.

In my head using the phrase implies something demeaning about the activity it describes. That it was insignificant, valueless. That it’s purpose was so unremarkable that the only thing worth mentioning about it is that it was completed.

Marry my wife? Got it done. Bury my father? Got it done. Apologize to my mother? Got it done?  Learn to read? Got it done. Find meaning in my life and my faith? Got it done.

When you put it next to really important things, doesn’t it make them sound undignified? 

I don’t fault anyone for using the phrase (full disclosure, I use it too even though I don’t want to. It’s part of our lexicon). And I get that writing this makes me at least a little bit of a shmuck. But golly, why even bother doing something that lacks purpose to a point where it could fit in the category of “stuff I got done” today?