The Myth of Getting Things Done

My experience in American Work Culture

I’ve always found myself drawn to doing the least amount of work to accomplish as necessary. Perhaps it is this reason that I find myself in contempt of the (seemingly) typical American life — a life that is characterized by a constant desire to GO!

There seems to be this need to get “things” done, whatever these things may be. These “things” are usually unimportant little tasks that simply just take up time. It is my working theory that going to work is just a simple way to keep one occupied so they don’t have to think about larger problems in the world.

Most of the time, it doesn’t even matter if these mystical “things” get done or not. It only matters that you’re doing them. It matters that you are methodically checking off “things” off of some task-list given to you by a mythological authority figure.

This is a vulgar state of mind. It is always looking for a new stimulus, a new thing to keep it entertained. It seems that social media, smartphone and computer addiction have gotten the better of most of us — I’m even guilty of it. I wake up and habitually want to check my phone, as if something happened on Instagram at 3 a.m. that I need to know about. This is not normal and it should not be normalized.

This mind is always on the hunt to survive, as if the next little task is going to help save them from what’s to come. But this isn’t the case anymore. We aren’t in the jungles and so we…