Never changing?

Have I changed over the past ten years? It seems like I am doing the same things as I was doing ten years ago.

Sure, there are changes in my life. I am working now. I have greater responsibility at work, home and church, but the essence of my existence has not changed.

My discussion topics and interests have not really changed during these years.

I am still engaging in activities such as dinners, suppers and drinks, even though the places I go to may have changed. For example, over the years, I have gone to Double Bay for different things, initially it was ice cream at the French Riviera (now relocated) or coffee at Dee Bees, then it was coffee and desserts at the Cosmopolitan, and today, Double Bay is the place for Max Brenner.

I am still into music, and still go to karaoke. The only difference is the songs I sing. Over the years, I sang a number of songs and each era I would sing songs from certain singers, from Jacky Cheung and Leon Lai, to Andy Hui, to Leo Ku and Eason Chan, and now Justin Lo. There is essentially not much difference in what I do in a karaoke room over the years.

I still enjoy communicating with people, and over the years the modes of communication has changed. I remembered spending hours on the phone in the past, talking to my friends until 4 or 5 am in the morning. I remembered the ICQ explosion, where we spent hours typing messages with each other. And nowadays, its all MSN each night and every night, and the occasional SMS.

I still talk about boy-girl relationship with other people, and still, I have not found someone to be the one, even though over the years I have been with a few different girls. I still talk about my future aspirations. I still complain about the things in my life, which in the past would be university lecturers and timetables, and now it would be bosses at work or incompetent graduates. I still talk about my interests with others - music, films, travel, sports, current affairs, philosophy, religions, etc.

Is this a problem? Does this mean that I have not developed over the past ten years?

Most of my contemporaries have moved on the next life stage. Getting married. Having babies. Their interests have changed dramatically. They have no more time for long chats, or karaoke til 3am in the morning. They talk about where to get cheap nappies or which shop sells chicken wings for 10c less per kilo. They have less freedom with their financial resources, especially with a mortgage over their family home. It seems like we are in two different worlds.

And maybe that is why I am able to associate with people 10 years younger than me now, because I am still at the same life stage as them.

Is this a problem? Maybe my next life stage will come at much a later time in life than my contemporaries. Or maybe there is no next life stage for me.