When People Leave
People rarely leave all at once—they leave in quiet decisions made long before the exit.
An Art of Drinking Water reflection · 5 minute read
People rarely leave all at once.
They leave slowly.
In increments.
In quiet decisions made long before a resignation is submitted.
They leave when they stop speaking up in meetings.
When they stop offering ideas that once came freely.
When their care turns inward because it is no longer safe to place it outward.
By the time people leave physically,
they have usually already left emotionally.
What organizations often call turnover
is really the final step of a much longer process.
People leave when their work is unseen.
When their effort becomes expected instead of acknowledged.
When growth is promised but never practiced.
They leave when alignment turns into endurance.
They leave when the cost of staying outweighs the fear of going.
And contrary to the narrative, people don’t usually leave because they’re weak, impatient, or unwilling to work hard.
They leave because they have been working hard
without being held.
They leave because something essential has leaked out of the system:
trust, dignity, meaning.
I’ve watched good people leave quietly.
Not in protest.
Not in anger.
But in grief.
Grief for what they hoped the place would become.
Grief for the version of themselves they offered and were not met with.
Grief for staying longer than they should have.
Leaving is often misread as disloyalty.
But staying in a space that diminishes you
is not loyalty.
It’s self-erasure.
Water taught me something here.
Water doesn’t leave because it’s impatient.
It leaves because gravity has changed.
When the ground no longer holds it,
when the container cracks,
when flow is blocked—
water moves.
Not out of spite.
Out of truth.
People leave when they realize they are carrying more than the system can acknowledge.
When they are asked to adapt endlessly while nothing else changes.
When the work demands sacrifice but offers no reciprocity.
And sometimes, leaving is the first honest act left available.
If you are watching people leave and wondering why, look beyond the exit interview.
Look at what was normalized.
What was minimized.
What was left unspoken.
Look at who stayed silent the longest.
They usually felt it first.
If you are the one leaving, hear this:
You are not abandoning something sacred.
You are protecting something essential.
Leaving does not erase what you gave.
It does not negate your effort.
It does not mean you failed.
Sometimes it means you finally listened.
Like water responding to gravity,
leaving is not collapse.
It is movement toward what can still hold you.
And that, too, is part of the art.