A common response, when someone sees what you’re doing, or hears what you’re saying, is to say “That’s interesting!”. I find myself responding this way all the time, and over the last few weeks I’ve found myself thinking more about why we respond this way.

My conclusion so far is that to assert that something is “interesting” is a crutch. It’s a way of hiding. It’s what we say when we don’t really know what we think about something, and we say it so we can absolve ourselves of the more difficult task of reflecting on and articulating back what makes something interesting to us.

Here’s an easy way to demonstrate for yourself how much of a crutch-word this is. The next time you say “that’s interesting”, turn that into “that’s interesting because…”. And then force yourself to finish the sentence.

When you stop at “that’s interesting”, you’re robbing others of an opportunity to understand the way you think. When you follow up with “…because…”, your response stops being just a reaction. It becomes valuable feedback that the other person can use to create something tomorrow that’s even more interesting.