Rumination is abandonment.

When we look automatically to our past, when we find ourselves in the machinations of "should have, would have, could have," when we're unthinkingly repeating and replaying scenes, we are abandoning ourselves. This act of staying in the past is leaving the present self behind. It is dangerous because the present life needs tending to. It is like a child that needs attention, direction, and care.

Looking to the past is a tempting distraction. Various neuroses—whether OCD, depression, or some cognate of unwanted repeated mental behaviors—trick the mind into believing that revisiting and reevaluating the past leads to safety. If I learn the lessons from the past, I'll protect myself from the future. If I figure out what I did wrong, maybe I can go and fix things.

The trickery lies in the fact that there's some truth to these notions. Sure, we can learn lessons from our past. Perhaps things can be fixed. But for many, if not most cases, if we're not taking immediate action, if we're not finding lessons within a scoped, tight time frame, we are ruminating. We are getting trapped in the past, not leveraging it to propel us further.

This stuckness should be avoided at all costs. It is dangerous. It is the abandonment of the present life. The present life has needs, wants, desires. It should indeed be treated like a child—if we do not take care of it, no one will. Sure, it may survive, but it will be alone. At worst, it could be kidnapped by life circumstances that can co-opt us when we are not paying attention.

I'll come clean: overthinking has been one of my struggles in life, and this overthinking often takes the form of evaluating the past. A coach I work with suggested this framing—that rumination is abandonment. It resonates with me, it feels like a tangible metaphor I can use to remind myself, "hey, you're abandoning your life, your inner child, your goals," when I am practicing revisits from the past.

The past and the future are ghosts. It's so trite, and yet the wise emphasis on the present moment is prevalent for a reason. It's so easy to get caught in the past or the future! There are so many of us that do. And yet, all that exists is the present moment. We cannot create our life from the past. We can only create it from the present moment.