Choosing Words, Choosing Attention

I have a few words I try not to use.

“Somehow” and “whatever” are at the top of that list. They often sound harmless, but I have come to associate them with a quiet form of irresponsibility. When I say “somehow,” I usually mean that I do not understand the process. When I say “whatever,” I often mean that I cannot think of further examples. In both cases, the words carry almost no information. They do not clarify; they merely signal a gap in thinking, wrapped in a casual tone. Realizing this, I started avoiding them in daily conversation.

There is another phrase I use frequently, though, and for a long time I did not question it: “I feel like.”

I was once struck by the line, “I can’t tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like.” At the time, it sounded deeply human to me. After all, facts are never accessed directly; they are always filtered through our perspectives, attitudes, and internal systems. In that sense, truth is something we digest, not something we simply receive. Because of this, I never placed “I feel like” in the same category as “somehow” or “whatever.” It felt honest rather than careless.

That changed during a casual lunch conversation with one of my favorite colleagues in the department, who works in human–computer interaction. One of the great privileges of being in an interdisciplinary environment is encountering people who think with entirely different vocabularies, and I genuinely cherish that. As usual, I was enthusiastically explaining something, leaning heavily on phrases like “it felt like…” My colleague listened calmly and responded with a single sentence: “Oh, your observation is very interesting.”

The word observation landed with unexpected force.

I paused, asked her about it, and she laughed, explaining that it was probably a habit from her field. In HCI, terms like “observation” and “cognition”—words I rarely use in my own discipline—are part of everyday professional language. But for me, that moment marked a shift. I realized that “what I feel like” is not merely a softer way of speaking; it is a declaration of digestion rather than description. It foregrounds my internal response rather than what actually happened, what was noticed, or what mattered.

This does not mean that feelings are unimportant. Empathy and sympathy are essential human capacities, and they make societies gentler and more livable. But when conversation centers only on how things feel, it can obscure facts, blur distinctions, and quietly prevent an unbiased view. Words shape cognition. Choosing “observation” over “I feel like” subtly shifts attention outward, away from emotional peaks and toward structure, pattern, and context. I have found that this shift alone can reduce emotional turbulence and bring a surprising sense of calm.

So I try, consciously now, to replace “what it feels like” with “what I observed,” not only in professional settings but in my own thinking. If nothing else, it has been an exercise in clarity—and perhaps even a small contribution to inner peace. (Though, to be fair, people who often say “what I felt like…” are probably warm and kind by nature. I still believe that.)