How Long is Long?

In the industry I work for (IT), 3 years is about the time an employee spends with a company on an average (that is in India). In that context, I used to think my 8+ years with my current employer did mean something (whatever that means)!! But all that is busted.. A recent viewing of the list of years of service awards in the company's newsletter put things in perspective. There is even one person who has spent 45 years with the company and there are are significant number of people who had put 20,25,30,35,40 years of service and so on. All of them were in US or Europe, but that doesn't matter. I used to think this can happen only in Government service (For example my mom put in 38 years in TN Government Service). May be a few people do put in long years in Private Sector as well, but the sheer numbers in my company surprised me. I am certainly not competing with them. Don't think I can even if I want to. The 8 years that I spend with my employer had been time well spent with lots of learning, growth and making good friendships, but lately I have been grappling with the thoughts if this is high time to seek some change. Ofcourse there is more to it than just the number of years, but that would be a subject for another post :-) Just my thoughts and I am sure everyone has their own take on "How Long is Long".