Anita was not really a yoga practitioner, but she liked Rodney Yee. I started doing yoga in 1999 (not so much recently) and Yee soon became my favorite yogi. For those who don’t know him, he is a slight Asian man, a former dancer, with an amazing philosophy of life.
Anita had dome some yoga videos with me and also admired Yee. By early 2006, she had bought a couple of his books, which not only present yoga poses but more life philosophy.
This morning I ran across an old wall posting of hers from that period.
I’m not trying to get healthy. I’m not trying to get unhealthy. I’m not trying to do something with this. I’m doing it because I love to do it and I am doing it. Everybody pushes you in this life. “Why are you doing that? What are you doing that for? What’s that going to lead to?” Well, it’s all leading to death – so get it straight. You’re going to die, okay?
–Rodney Yee, yogi
Here I see a convergence of three things that Anita continued to focus on.
First: process. When we met, Anita was very goal oriented. But after law school (she was about 30), she found achievement for its own sake was not fulfilling to her. It’s once reason she turned to Christ. She struggled the rest of her life to be more process oriented.
Second: passion. Through time, she discovered that passion for something is what drives you to do something even when it sucks. Her passion was small business/entrepreneurism (but it took her years to realize that) which was one reason why she was so amazing working with small business owners.
Third: death. For at least ten years, she knew and accepted that we were not guaranteed any specific amount of time in this world. Roadney Yee’s statement is pretty blunt, but those that knew Anita knew that she liked people who were not afraid to “tell it like it is”.
By no means had Anita mastered or even fully internalized these ideas. Her wall posts were meant as reminders to her as she walked the path God made for her as reminders to the things she needed to work on.
