The Line Between "It's Better To" and "Must"

  I have been reading a lot of Albert Ellis's writings on REBT therapy principles, and I find that a lot of is somehow similar to the Buddhist teachings on non-attachment. Ellis offers a reasoned way of helping his clients (and readers) understand how to maximize their efforts without getting into what he calls "masturbation"--that tendency to think that things have to be done just because it is most beneficial that they are done. I think this is similar to the tendency to link a series of impressions into a subject and object. For instance, I see something I like, and then soon I start to sense an "I" that is deficient unless I absolutely have to own that thing. I suspect that Buddhist phenomenology has a more detailed and nuanced way of articulating Ellis's principles, but Ellis tends to be more direct and logical, rather than anatomizing the process of coming to form a self and other. Nonetheless, there are perhaps a few parallels in the two ways of thinking.
    The struggle I have with Ellis is that he poses two (in my opinion) very different and sometimes potentially conflicting discourses, and then somehow tries to put them together. I am not sure if the result is successful or whether it's up to the client to navigate the two different discourses and bring them together.
       One of these discourses is that of "unconditional self/other acceptance." This refers to the ability for the mind to pretty much accept everything, provided that one is not insisting that reality go according to their likes, preferences and plans. In other words, Ellis suggests that everything is bearable if we stop feeling that we have to have things a certain way that feels 'right' for us. Similarly, loving others comes from the attitude of complete, unconditional acceptance. Ellis argues that there  is no limit to this acceptance.  Even when a person feels the sadness of losing a loved one or being unemployed, for instance, the mind is able to accept the condition of sadness itself as natural and inevitable, rather than railing against the circumstances or trying to make them different. So far, this aspect is reminiscent of the Buddhist concepts of renunciation (nekhamma) and even the 'suchness' of tathagathagarbha. In these latter concepts, there is a complete acceptance which is not tainted with attachment to certain feelings, thoughts or ideal states of being. As a result, there is no self-attachment when things are not going as planned.
     The second discourse that predominate in Ellis's writing is the attitude which he refers to as "PYA" or "Push your ass". Ellis is referring to the fact that because most desirable things in life are hard-won and require great amounts of personal effort, one had better learn to tolerate a certain amount of natural and inevitable hardship and frustration to achieve one's desired goals. Already, I begin to sense that this discourse somewhat contradicts the notion of unconditional acceptance. For example, if I unconditionally accept things as they are now, why would I need to have goals or work hard to achieve anything? Of course, I am stating this crudely, but I am suggesting that these two ideas may sit uneasily in the mind. I have often heard group meditation practitioners ask this same question: does the non-attachment found in meditation contradict the process of goal setting that students undergo? Of course, the answer to this question from a Buddhist perspective is that we still set goals, but the goals are more often related to achieving wholesome states of mind as well as providing benefits to others. These are not considered forms of tanha or egoistic cravings that the Buddha describes as the second Noble Truth, or source of suffering. From Ellis' perspective, however, it's not so clear. I wonder if Ellis is suggesting that even though we may not be attached to preferences, we still have preferences, and an optimal life consists in pursuing preferred states of being without insisting that they happen. In other words: set goals, but do not turn goals into shoulds or musts.
     So far, so good, but I think that the conflict for me reaches its peak when I consider how we orient ourselves to anxiety at work. If I take the first discourse, I may become too lackadaisical, and become resigned to the idea that I accept myself as I am rather than exerting effort to improve a process or situation. Now, this is still attachment, and Ellis would argue that it's more akin to insisting that one be 'the same' as one was a minute ago, which is certainly a dogmatic kind of view rather than a true acceptance. True acceptance is by necessity fluid in the sense that it spontaneously adopts to a variety of novel and existing situations. My 'resigning' myself to one view of who I am is already a form of attachment, and both the Buddha and Ellis would argue that it creates suffering because it only solidifies the false notion of who one is.
    I have a sense that the second discourse (Push your ass) can only be sustainable once a person has fully and thoroughly mastered the first concept. The reason for this is that hard work only becomes another form of torturous suffering when one has invested their sense of identity, value and worth into it. Ellis wants us to disabuse ourselves of these investments, precisely so that we can smoothly move into the second discourse. While the first discourse might be compared to 'stilling' the mind by lessening attachment, the second discourse might be more akin to a selfless investigation of things as they are. Once I have accepted myself and situation without attaching to my work as 'my value', I then paradoxically have a lot of mental space to take on more projects and do so without anxiously measuring my value by what I complete or perform 'well'.
    Whenever a person feels flustered, it's best that they shift away from a pull your ass mentality and toward a sense of unconditional worth and love. The alternating discourses of pull your ass and unconditional acceptance are actually two dialectic poles, and need to be equally validated and introduced. However, I suspect that Ellis is right in placing somewhat more stress on unconditional self acceptance. Without it, 'pushing one's ass' becomes another form of anxious suffering rooted in attachments.