Motivations for staying in a role for longer than a few years?
The discussion shared below was part of many Q&A sessions Harsh Singhal conducted with Data teams at various companies and colleges.
People stay and leave for a variety of reasons. As long as you are convinced to stay or go, then your reasons are the right reasons.
I do not see a career as a series of jobs but rather the total of your contributions.
These contributions can happen in any number of capacities, and a job at a company is just one way of many ways to contribute. If you do not like to participate as a full-time employee, you can find other ways to participate in the economy (part-time jobs, freelancing, consulting, gig work).
If you see yourself contributing and enjoying your work, time flies no matter where or how you are employed.
Try to look around and find areas of contribution instead of job roles. Companies and startups are just large groups of contributors coming together, so find the group you would like to work with and gravitate towards them.
The quote below from Timothy Leary describes this well.
“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…”
- Timothy Leary
