Because your job is not as secure as it seems

Your job seems secure: your field has a promising future; your company is profitable; you are valued by your boss.

You don’t much like your job, but it’s hard to leave it when it seems so secure.

Until one day your field is disrupted by an unanticipated advance in technology or an unexpected shift in the global economy, and you are laid off.

Until one day the profits dip, and the funding dries up, and your company goes out of business, and you are laid off.

Until one day your boss is promoted, or retires, or quits, and your new boss doesn’t value you so highly, and you are laid off.

You didn’t much like your job, and you’re not sorry to have lost it.

You just wish you’d left it on your own terms.

You just wish you’d left it in your own time.

You wish you’d left it years ago.