Marinate, Don’t Ruminate

Ever notice how a good cut of meat only gets better the longer it sits in the right marinade? The flavors soak in. The texture changes. It becomes something more than it was when you started. Now compare that to something left forgotten in the back of the fridge. Untouched. Unseasoned. Left to sit in its own juices until the edges curl, and the smell starts to change.

That’s the difference between marinating and ruminating.

Ruminating feels like thinking. It wears the same costume. It pretends to be productive. But what it really is, is chewing the same piece of gum over and over long after the flavor is gone. It’s mental reflux. It doesn’t feed you. It exhausts you.

Marinating, on the other hand, is intentional. You’re still sitting with something…but you’re adding something to it. You’re infusing it with meaning. With context. With perspective. You’re not just letting time pass…you’re letting it do its work on you.

I’ve learned that distinction the hard way. I used to call it "processing" when really I was punishing myself. Replaying moments. Words. Scenarios. The times I missed. The people I lost. The ways I got it wrong. But nothing ever changed from that kind of reflection. It just made me tired. It made me bitter.

Then I started to understand the power of marinating. Taking a moment, a mistake, a hard lesson…and surrounding it with questions that actually serve me.

• What did this teach me?
  
• What do I want to do with it?
  
• How can this make me better?
  
• Who else could benefit from what I learned here?
  
  

Those are marinade questions. They transform. They tenderize. They soften the hard edges and add flavor where there was once just raw experience.

Ruminating asks, "Why did this happen to me?" Marinating asks, "What can I do with it now?"

It’s not just semantics. It’s a total shift in posture.

Ruminating keeps you stuck in the spin cycle. Marinating moves you forward, even while you’re still.

The world tells us to hustle. Move fast. Think hard. Fix it all now. But the real transformation doesn’t always come from movement. Sometimes it comes from sitting still with the right ingredients.

Add truth. Add time. Add grace. And maybe a little salt.

Then wait.

If you do it right, you don’t come out the same.

And when you do finally step forward…you’ll taste different. You’ll be different.

So the next time your mind is spinning, ask yourself:

Am I seasoning this? Or letting it spoil?

Because rot happens on autopilot. But flavor…that takes intention.

- Bob