Staying the same hurts too. It just hurts slowly, so you don’t notice.

Staying put gets treated as the option with no cost, which is how it wins so many arguments. The cost is real and simply distributed: a small amount of dullness or resentment every day for years, quiet enough that you never attribute it to anything. Change hurts all at once and announces itself. Sameness hurts in instalments and stays anonymous.

Add up honestly what another year of no change would cost you. Not the dramatic version, the likely one. Then decide which of the two prices you would rather pay.