The fourth ethic is Mujahadah (Personal Control) – our aspiration is to realize our full potential and a life of balanced and satisfying achievements. Through this ethic, we now shift focus from external relationships and turn inward to our own selves. Mujahadah is the drive within us toward self-improvement and toward progressively increasing self-discipline. It is our constant struggle within us to achieve our ideals and to achieve the highest moral balance between the previous three ethical values.
Mujahadah is the most challenging of the four ethics, as it requires us to evaluate ourselves accurately and honestly, and then to pursue our own course of self-improvement in order to honor our commitments. This entails two pre- requisites. First, we need the time to contemplate our need for Mujahadah. Second, we need to be aware of the fact that we need improvement.
That is, true Mujahadah begins when we have had the time to contemplate our behaviors, and when we reach the realization that these behaviors are not at the level they should and could be at.
Thus, we need to use our time in a manner that will allow us to realize the need to raise our professional standards and behaviors to the required level, and to actually begin the process of improvement. How do we do this? We do it by avoiding those activities that waste our time and dilute our focus on client service excellence.
We also do it by avoiding those activities that hinder our realization of the need for improvement. That is, activities that make us feel we are fine as we are and that we are just as good, if not better, than others. In other words, we need to avoid the habit of delving into the affairs of others, focusing on their shortcomings, and gossiping. All such activities are not only a waste of time, but they also feed our vanity and sense of self- satisfaction and take us further away from realizing the need for Mujahadah.
At the same time Mujahadah calls for the balanced management of the physical and mental self. Stress and over-exertion eventually undermine the person’s capacity to function and affect his/her family life. Therefore, over-stretching the physical and emotional limits of the self becomes contradicting true Mujahadah.
Thus, Mujahadah is about controlling our tendencies and directing our efforts towards developing our ability to ensure fulfillment of our ethical responsibilities towards all stakeholders.
Mujahadah is exhibited by such guidelines as:
- We should concern ourselves only with that which falls within our realm of That is:
- We should not bother ourselves with what others are doing when what they are doing does not concern
- We should not attempt to search or look for information about the actions of others, if we are not in a position to assist in those
- We should not attempt to search for or look for information about the problems of others, if we are not in a position to assist in solving those
- We should not become involved in the initiation or propagation of
- When an issue falls within our realm of responsibility, we should exert every effort possible to resolve it in a manner consistent with our ethical
- We should exploit any free time we find to improve ourselves, to enhance our expertise, or to perfect our capabilities to a higher standard.