Staying in the same job for several years can almost be like falling into a depression.
It swallows you up and that’s all you see. It’s not so much whether the job is good or bad; it’s just that you can easily lose the ability to compare your surroundings to those of other situations. You begin to believe there is only one way of doing things, or, even if you know there are other ways of doing things, you haven’t experienced them in so long, it’s hard to believe they exist.
Like depression, long tenure is all-encompassing.
I’m not saying you should leave but you should definitely see what else is out there and discover other ways of doing what you’re doing, for your own sake and for the sake of your employer. Be a tourist somewhere else to shake up your paradigm.
Whether you stay or not, is irrelevant.
You’ll climb out of the chasm. You’ll see farther and shed off the claustrophobia you didn’t know was there. And with deeper inhalations, a lot more is possible, wherever you are.