There is an adage that is known and goes like this: "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks."
The above has to do with the fact that as we human beings change, many of our ways become "set". That's true for most people out there especially. These ways are set in our minds, emotions, lifestyles and habits. Of course, the more we grow up and the more we stagnate, the more we tend to become also stuck on certain routines for better or for worse. These routines and repetitive things we do, tend to decide our fate and where our life goes or doesn't go.
Observe the above in outsiders and people who do not change anything in their life, and you will see what I mean. Resistence to change is one thing; resistance to development is another.
Aristotle knew this and put the matter really simply: Everything you will do or will not do, is largely a subject of the proper habits. It's about what you do and what you do long enough to reap any form of benefit from it. If you will become a highly virtuous or successful person, is entirely related to your habits. If you will fail at everything in life, deep down, it still goes back to your habits.
Habits, or the things you do everyday, are actually forming what we refer to ask Karma. Karma is the law of consequence based on previous decisions and actions, like cause and effect, but on a far larger scale. But fundamentally this is what it is. There are levels of karma we can control, and levels that we cannot control.
In some levels in life, one might have "Good Karma", for example, their parents, due to [oftentimes unconscious] good mating decisions, or good fortune, might have good health. That is a tendency to good karma. This habit of existence can be maintained if one does what is good for themselves or their health, or it can vanish if one does not do what they should do in order to maintain this. Start doing all the wrong things in the world for your health, then before you know it, any "good karma" here will start shedding itself bit by bit.
A well sculpted body, falls also on this category. No matter who you are, you can have a great body if you exercise. Your older years will have less pain, because you exercised.
Similarly, in spirituality, you will be a better state of being and mentality, if you just work on these instead of doing nothing. As harm or pressure from life accumulates, you will have way less or none if you habituate yourself in the gifts of this path. If not, suffering awaits. Many older people only keep getting older, more stagnant and suffering.
The Zevst path is literally shaped to be the opposite. As you grow, while others wait for their death or the eventuality of some delusion that will "save them", you are indeed moving through your habits [studying, better life, meditation, improving your life] into a better trajectory, that can just keep getting better. While our habits cannot always control what we are hit from by life, our habits can help us iron ourselves and give us a semblance of strong balance, that keeps us afloat no matter what. Calamity, disaster and anything might hit, but when habits and self mastery are strong, one has the power to move on.
Humans construct their own living torments and "hells" because of many misdirected habits. If you sit playing video games all day in denial of existence, all these things you are not improving at, are going to come back to you to bite you hard: Loneliness, isolation, lack of partner, bad health, denial of existence, being oblivious life, old age, lack of attainment - these things are coming.
These things are not coming because you play video games necessarily, because if you did this in good measure, it would be good for you; but in the example of over-reaching damning behaviors like addiction, these will make sure you receive a form of "punishment" later on. This "punishment" one can try to "postpone" or avoid, but it will always be there.
Going back to habits, the reconstruction of your negative habits that don't take you to where your heart and dreams want you to be, is the key to go forward. You won't become a God if you don't meditate or don't try to live your existence and life. The only way forward is through repetitive doing, daily doing, until you are there.
Lastly, the great crown for those who have good habits, is that you will attain effortlessness when it comes to attaining certain things. Things that are good and "painful" will actually give you a pleasure that only athletes and other people who really struggle and force themselves to a higher limit in any category of life will really understand.
The reason why there such stern focus on getting children to exercise in the Ancient world, especially up until ages of teenagehood, is because it makes you form the notion of habit in your mind. If you are an athlete and you know the painstaking 20 years it can take to reach mastery on your sport, you will understand me instantly when I say anything.
If you grew up never having to form yourself in this manner, you think that everything happens without any toil and one always seeks the easy way out, which is inconsistent with great attainments especially in material or high spiritual subjects. Toil looks foreign, and therefore one is with-held from proper success.
It didn't take me any amount of stress or pressure to write this message here, it was done flawlessly and with a lot of love. But years ago when I started saying just about anything, it was not easy to do. Still there are days where it's really hard but I have learned to enjoy the process. Habituation here worked itself. When one manages these habits, then these habits also change YOU and what YOU enjoy and what you do "not enjoy".
Therefore, if you aren't enjoying your purpose in Zevism or the gym or anything positive like meditation in your life, or in your life in general, or you feel "resistance", it's simply due to lack of proper habituation. When you do this, the "resistance" will disappear and eventually become a propelling force, getting you upward so you can unfold your potential.
Yes, old "dogs", no matter who they are, can learn new tricks. The question is up to the individual's will to actually discover a better existence and potential for themselves, or to not do this. The choice is yours in the end of the day.
-High Priest Zevios Metathronos