Crossing the “Lakshman Rekha” in the professional Life

One of the important concepts in the Hindu Epic Ramayana is that of “Lakshman Rekha”. This is the mystical line drawn by Lakshman, younger brother of Ram, around their hut to protect his sister-in-law, Sita from the demonic world. When we apply this concept to our personal and professional lives, things get a bit interesting.

When we are young, sky is the limit. Then the worldly wisdom of the elders & friends start pouring in. With this in the backdrop & topped up with our own personal experiences, we slowly start to etch out a line, a “Lakshman Rekha” of sorts, within which we like to confine ourselves. As a kid, it could be playing time, watching TV time, number of toys, everything is curtailed. As we mature, it could be a speed limit, or knowing when to stop drinking, when to return home back from a night out, how to control our words, etc. One of the strong dialogues from the Hindi movie Dil-Chahtha-hai was “In every friendship, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and today you have crossed it”, which leads to a very sour phase in their friendship. We are expected to draw a boundary in all aspects of personal life, and crossing this “Lakshman Rekha” would almost certainly put us at the perils of the greater evil.

Now, moving to the professional life, this concept could be interpreted upside down. When we graduate from college, again, we don’t have any limits or boundaries. We are ready to work on pretty much anything and anywhere. But slowly, as we start getting foot hold in the industry, we start building a Lakshman Rekha around our professional expertise, and tend to stay inside this “comfort zone”. Anything outside this comfort zone makes us very uneasy. I believe the greater success in professional life comes by crossing this line; going out of this comfort zone, moving from the world of “known” to “unknown”. We have seen many professionals overcome this challenge to set us strong examples. In professional life, this is a self-made “Lakshman Rekha” that must be crossed for the greater good.