How much is a year worth?

Suppose your job has become slow and boring, but you're planning to go to med school in a year.  You could stay at your current job, or take a more interesting one-year job at a non-profit for 1/3 less pay.  Or, your company put you through school, and if you leave within the next year, you owed them $30,000. 

In these cases, do you stay at your job even though you aren't learning anything?

The question boils down to a year is worth to you. 

One-third less pay, or $30,000, whichever works for you, sounds like a lot of money.  On the other hand, sitting around not learning has three very real costs: 1) being bored sucks, 2) your skills are actually declining, and 3) you're foregoing the chance to branch out to new areas.

Our brains can quickly grasp the value of 1/3 of our paycheck, but the other costs, though more numerous, remain vague and thus valueless.  We end up calculating this as $30,000 vs nothing.

Of course, that's completely wrong.  First of all, all learning comes to use.  Second, think of how much more satisfied you'll feel at the end of each day.  And third but not least, you can use the year at a new job to take risks that could blow up -- oh, so that's what happens when you frankly tell VPs when they're wrong in a meeting -- or could turn out to be amazingly successful.  You can take the risks because, at worst, you'll end up out of a job in a year, which is where you'd be anyway.  At best, you might end up shocked at what you accomplish.

Unless you're retiring soon, or you're living on steamed rice and frozen vegetables and you literally need every dollar of your paycheck to get by month-to-month, the intangible costs will be far more valuable in the long run.