When the old Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) would release its “5 Year Plan”, it presented a systematic economic model of an ordered and organized state — a feature of a centralized model, based upon a philosophy of an intelligent and purposeful populace which worked in tandem with the collective needs of a labor-force reflective of a superior ideology.
Or so it seemed on paper.
What reality brought forth and what a planned model proposed, turned out to be entirely two different things. And isn’t that true of life in general for the individual? It is well to have a plan for one’s life; but adjustments must be made, and refinements must be allowed for, as the reality of circumstances reveal the imperfections of any human planning. Perhaps an unexpected birth joyfully interrupts; a death in a family necessitates delaying certain endeavors; or an illness or injury impacts one’s ability to continue in the career of one’s chosen field of vocation.
Federal Disability Retirement filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an option which should be considered in the changing course of a person’s life-planning. Perhaps it is not the most attractive or celebratory alternative to choose; but when limitations from the reality of life are imposed, one must not expect to choose from an endless series of options, but rather from those which are offered and realistically proposed.
For Federal and Postal workers, the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, is a choice offered as part of the total compensation package of one’s employment; and when needed, it is a choice which, fortunately, exists in order to be able to revise and reformulate one’s future plans.
By the way, what ever happened to those old Soviet Union 5-year plans? Like so much of history, they temporarily disappeared onto the proverbial ash heaps of fiction and folly, only to be revived when history fails to teach its lesson of repetition and recurrence.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire