As a practical device, it retains nutrients and cooks various foods faster because of the intensity of the heat, thereby quickly forcing nutrients out into the cauldron of mixed vegetables, all the while tenderizing the tough meat. As a metaphor, it represents a symbol of the human condition: Stolid on the outside, reaching uncontrollable and explosive currents beneath the surface.
Other metaphors often accompany the picture of the pressure cooker: The “walking time bomb”; the “short fuse”; the “screaming boss” and the “fragile psyche” — these and many more describe the state of modernity’s human condition. And the picture of the final straw that breaks the camel’s back — of the slow, subtle, incremental and progressively destructive forces which cumulatively burden the back of the beast until the final straw breaks it under the weight of stresses no longer bearable.
Life is difficult; and when a medical condition adds upon the pile of troubles we burden ourselves with, the image of the pressure cooker comes to the fore. The chores that we leave undone; the work that demands; the relationships which wither; the time that is irredeemably lost; these, and many more, fall into the mixture of the pressure cooker that has no more nutrients to offer.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition has added to the pressure cooker of life’s travails, it may be time to contact a FERS Disability Attorney to consider representation for filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application. The pressure cooker is meant to serve, not to destroy; but if the pressure building gets to a certain level beyond the danger point, it is well past the time to consider filing a Federal Disability Retirement application.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement, Et Cetera… 