I was making $200,000 a year - about two crores rupees. I had a job most people dream about. My parents were proud. My life looked stable from the outside. By every conventional measure, I had “made it.”
But every morning, before the emails and meetings began, I would hear a quiet voice ask: Is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? It was a small question, but one that refused to go away. It sat in my chest like a weight, pressing harder every day.
I stayed because I had worked so hard to get there. The long nights, the sacrifices, the years of effort - it all felt too valuable to let go of. My parents had given up so much for my education. Walking away felt irresponsible, even ungrateful. How could I throw it all away?
And I know I wasn’t alone. Many of us stay in jobs that drain us, in relationships that stopped growing, in cities that no longer fit who we’re becoming. We stay because we’ve already spent years, money, and emotional energy getting there. Leaving feels like waste.
But that feeling - that “I’ve already invested too much to walk away” - is what psychologists call the sunk cost fallacy. We hold on because of what we’ve already poured in, even if it no longer serves us.
For a long time, I was caught in that trap.
I kept replaying just one fear: What if I quit and six months later I’m struggling? What if everything falls apart? That question kept me stuck, looping through worst-case scenarios like a movie I couldn’t pause.
But one day, a different question showed up - a question that changed everything:
What if I don’t leave… and six years later, I’m still this unhappy?
That question hit harder than any fear. It forced me to zoom out from the next six months and look at the next six years. It made me see that staying wasn’t the safe option I thought it was. Sometimes the bigger risk is staying exactly where you are, slowly eroding who you could become.
That was my turning point.
Once I saw that staying would cost me far more than leaving ever could, the decision became clearer. Scary, but clear. Walking away wasn’t running from something - it was walking toward the possibility of something better.
So if you’ve been sitting with this feeling for months, maybe even years… if you feel stuck but don’t know how to justify leaving… let this be your sign.
Don’t let the years you’ve already spent determine the years you have left.
Sometimes the bravest step is to walk away anyway.