Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Cherishing moments

In the end, isn’t that all that we have?  We like to speak in terms of vast, grandiose expanses of time, where we create plans that span a lifetime, or refer to wide swaths of historical periods as if we have any conception at all about time, segments of memories or even of the memories already forgotten.  Old men and women reflect back and regret the time lost; middle-aged people who are caught up in the race to make up for lost time, continue on the treadmill that never seems to lessen; and the young — they just race through it as if there is no tomorrow.

Cherishing moments — how does one do that in a fast-paced world of technological amplification where everything moves at a hare’s pace when the yearning is for the tortoise’s calm?  Life comes at us with a fury and an unrelenting torrent of rain and winds; and when we try and raise the umbrella or walk at an angle to counter the ferociousness, we merely get left behind.

How is it that “memories” become more significant and important in our lives than the actual “living” of an episodic slice of our daily existential encounters?  At what point does one take precedence over the other?  Is there an imbalance of disproportionality that occurs — as in, spending more time “remembering” as opposed to “living”?  Is a person who watches the same move over and over, day after day, any different from the one who constantly daydreams about a moment in his or her life, over and over again, repetitively in a lost morass of memories unrepentantly consumed? What is the proper balance and mixture — somewhat like a recipe for a homemade pie or a birthday cake — between the ingredient of cherishing moments and the reality of daily living?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the problem with cherishing moments — any moments — is that the impediment of the medical condition itself will not allow for any enjoyment at all, whether of memories remembered or of life to be lived.  That is when you know that there is a disequilibrium that needs to be corrected.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may be the first, albeit tentative step, towards attaining a level of normalcy where cherishing moments is a choice to be taken, and not as a regretful nightmare uncontrollable in the restless dreams of a forsaken career.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Ikebana and life

Flower arrangement is an ancient art form that reflects the conduit of living.  If you look up the etymology in wikipedia, the term is derived from 2 simple concepts in Japanese: “Ikeru” (meaning, “to live” or “living”) and “hana” (as “flower”).  Thus, the two concepts combined form the compound meaning that embraces multiple connotations — of paralleling one’s manner of living by the arrangement of flowers that fill the home; of the appreciation of such arrangement in reflecting the order or disorder in one’s own life; and of allowing the fragrance of life to permeate throughout one’s personal circumstances, etc.

The type of arrangement one engages; the sparseness or fullness that one orders; the manner in which color and form are aggregated, placed, trimmed and gathered — these can all mirror and duplicate the parallel universe of one’s own life.  An Ikebana arrangement can reveal much, both about a person and the inner soul, the life’s worth, the worthiness of deeds accomplished, and the lifetime of the values imparted.

Medical conditions can do the same — they tell not only about a person’s will to live and the endurance of pain and suffering within this world, but also about everyone else and how a society treats its workers.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal Worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the long and arduous journey through one’s medical condition must be met with the complex administrative process of filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Through such a bureaucratic process, one will encounter the same things that are reflected in Ikebana and life: of a life that must be rearranged; of colors, shadows and hues that must be mixed and matched; and of the ordering of priorities encountered, the changes of that which thrives or wilts; all of these, like Ikebana and life itself, must be considered when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Disability: When reality exceeds the nightmare

At what point do we describe a dream as merely a dream, and not a nightmare, and does the contrast between the two as set in comparative standing against one’s daily reality change the equation at all? Are some people more able to tolerate greater tumult of images ensconced within the framework of the “inner eye” that receives the moving reels of dreams, nightmares and memories? Is there a connection between reality and dreams, reality and nightmares, and dreams and nightmares?

If one can maneuver with greater functionality in the reality of the objective world, does it manifest an indicator of greater capacity to withstand and travel through the detours of subjective consciousness depicting dreams and nightmares? Does the ability to remember dreams or nightmares make a difference, as well? Is rumination, obsessive recollection, screaming nights from images perpetrated by past experiences – i.e., war-time images diagnosed as PTSD or other traumatic events that cannot be compartmentalized or otherwise set aside – a symptom of a fragile ego too sensitive to tolerate for some?

Is a nightmare an expiation of the unworkable problems of daily life, such that the subconscious mind is attempting to sort and sift so that greater survivability can be achieved upon awakening from the slumber of sleepless sleep? Is a person who experiences constant and relentless nightmares, who wakes up just as exhausted because of the reliving of the experiences of prior trauma, actually asleep, or does the conceptual paradigm of “being asleep” necessarily include attaining a restorative plateau of rest?

It is, indeed, a complex interaction between the tripartite components of our daily experiences, both subjective and objective.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a reality which exceeds the nightmare, but more importantly, that dashes the dreams – both in the real sense of a dream while asleep, as well as the figurative dream in the sense of hope for the future – that paves the pathway for future anticipation, it is always important to balance the spectrum and pendulum between the deteriorating medical condition one suffers from, against the dreams one experiences, and contrast them against the nightmare of daily agony and the sleepless nightmares that awaken one with sweats and pools of angst.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted and waited upon with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, can sometimes appear to be in the “nightmare” category; but for those Federal and Postal employees who have to file such an animal, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the objective reality is that the medical conditions themselves already constitute a tumultuous reality that exceeds any nightmare conceived, and that is precisely why it becomes time for the Federal or Postal employee to prepare, formulate and file an effective OPM Disability Retirement application because, when reality exceeds the nightmare, it is time to wake up and tackle the monster of reality in order to be able to return to a restful slumber where dreams bring a smile upon the grimacing lips that shy away from nightmares.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Nascent knowledge

At what point does nascence become a maturity of device?  Is it linear time, or merely to exist within a pendulum of boredom where thoughts have moved on to other matters?  Youth, in general, is expected to engage in folly; but of nascent knowledge, where the appended concept of the latter connotes an established fact, a truism tested, and a hypothesis verified – but yet to be tested by time-worn principles and assimilated into the cauldron of society’s greater mixture of things working, defects allowable, and warts acknowledged as harmless.

For, newness itself should not be a basis for permanency of status, and as knowledge cannot be verified until tested, so nascent knowledge is the dangerous of all because it combines the defiance of dual categories:  Because it is new, it has not yet been tested; because it is “knowledge” unassimilated within the paradigms of commensurability like tectonic plates shifting to see what fits and what cannot be accommodated, so the lack of verification makes it that much more suspect.  Yet, we celebrate nascent knowledge “as if” the preceding announcement itself is as exciting as the introduction of a product advertised.

Don’t you miss those days of gangsters and badlands, when cell phones and close circuitry of images were missing, such that the detectives had to actually pursue the criminals?  Now, much of criminal investigation is reviewing of forensic evidence, and avoidance of conviction entails attacking the science of DNA analysis and the credentials of scientific application.

We have allowed for leaps and bounds over pauses of reflection, and never can we expect someone to evaluate and analyze an innovation and declare, “No, it just isn’t going to fit into the greater paradigm of our society”.  Why is that?  Is it because all souls are up for sale, and anything and everything that is deemed “new” becomes by definition that which is desirable and acceptable?  Or, is it merely a matter of economics, that the survival of a company or product is based upon the announcement of a more recent version, and vintage of merchandise is left for those with nostalgic tendencies, old fogies who lack the vibrancy of youth and the cult of newness?  That is, of course, where law and society clash; for, in law, the reliance upon constancy and precedent of legal opinions weigh heavily upon the judgment of current and future cases.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the acceptance of nascent knowledge should include the medical condition, the current circumstances, and the present impact upon the Federal or Postal employee’s job elements.  But as to nascent knowledge involving cases past and statutory interpretations of yore?

Those are the very basis upon which law operates, and for which nascent knowledge is anything but a folly untried and unintended for future use.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Life’s Fathomless Diatribe

We tend to personify and project upon lifeless, inorganic and inert entities, not to mention the extrapolation of generalized and universal conceptual forms, and inject them with personalities, characteristics and living imprints.  Did Plato make this fatal mistake, or was he beyond our intellectual capacity, and perhaps like the mischievous character he provided in his dialogues, was he merely the siamese twin of Socrates and inextricably conjoined in body, mind and philosophical spirit, with that glint of the knowing jokester?

“Life”, as we like to make of the stuff which confounds us, is like the half-crazed homeless person who stands on the street corner and yells at us as we pass by.  Sometimes, we even get hit by a bombardment of spittle, and an unexpected whack on the head, leaving us stunned and helpless, faint with outrage and anxious that Mr. Life may follow us home.  And, indeed, he sometimes does.

Life is like that fathomless diatribe; and we are merely an audience of one, isolated, watchful, spectators who can only observe, sometimes shout back, and in a feeble attempt at altering destiny, weep in a heap of self-pity and trembling repose.  That is how the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker feels, in confronting the mammoth of the Federal Bureaucracy and the U.S. Postal Service, especially when the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker are enmeshed in the weakened state of fighting a 3-front battle:  One’s own Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service; a medical condition that has begun to impact the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional requirements; and the battle against “life” and all of its multitudinous facets of complexities.

Is “life” just another metaphorical voice in the darkness of time?  For the Federal or Postal worker, the time to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must often be determined by the harkening voice of life’s trials and travails.  As OPM is just another behemoth to confront, in addition to one’s own agency or the U.S. Postal Service, so the preparation to “do battle” must include the tools of engagement:  the facts, the law, and the will to proceed.  And like life’s fathomless diatribe, the will to win must first and foremost be the amour of protection in preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Retirement from Federal Job due to Disabilities: Setting up the Contingency for Failure

We all engage in it, at times; and like the vertical clearance events, like the high jump, the measurement of the horizontal bar can make a difference by fractions of inches or centimeters, and where we place the bar will determine the outcome of failure or success.  “If X, then Y,” we whisper to ourselves daily; “If I am able to get through this day, then it shows that I am better, and…”

But medical conditions, especially, have an unique characteristic of skewing and distorting the predictable outcome; and, further, when human desire, unfettered by comparative milestones used as “reality checks” in order to keep contained the buoyancy of human wants, becomes part of the equation, the systematic self-deception can occur through setting up contingencies which will inevitably fail.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the issue of “when” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (submitted first through one’s own agency Human Resource Office if not yet separated from Federal Service or, if separated, not for more than 31 days; but if separated, within 1 year of being separated from service, which is the Statute of Limitations in all Federal Disability Retirement cases, with some stringent and narrow exceptions) has often been influenced by the imposition of setting up multiple and linear series of contingencies, all of which were doomed for failure.

That is why the very filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application often becomes a “crisis” of sorts; for, as we desire things beyond our reach, and know that such events are unlikely to happen, so we continually engage in such fantasies of hope, despite the facts which face us, the yearnings which remain unfulfilled, and the loud signals which have become sirens emitted from our bodies and inner souls, screaming to change course before the collision of life’s disaster brings tumult and chaos beyond the nightmares of our own making.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Time, Memories and Forgetting the Never-ending Cycle

It is well that human beings have short attention spans and memories, lest the magnification of residual retentive powers should lead one to act.  Despite daily repetition of pain, frustration and humiliation or turmoil, we are ready to repeat the process, and let our memories fade into oblivion.

Perhaps it is merely another one of the genetically-engineered traits for survivability within the evolutionary context of epochs of adaptation; or, a more proverbial mis-attribution to P.T. Barnum that there is a “sucker born every minute”.  Whether the former (which merely describes a state of “how” we act) or the latter (which explains the “why” of behavior), the determination for self-immolation gladly volunteered on a daily basis, also reveals the strength of the human essence.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who daily suffer through the physical pain of a medical disability, or the cognitive dissonance of psychiatric conditions (which is also a form of pain, interpreted through depression, anxiety, uncontrollable panic attacks and other symptoms of psychological ideations), the daily encounter with one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service can be a repetitive process of harassment, self-destructive engagements, and periodic spans of suffering.

Time is the void of space experienced throughout any given day; memories, the shutting aside of one’s experiential chaos; and the need to forget the cycle of turmoil reflects the necessary next step in order to separate one’s self from the repetition of progressive destruction.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a means to break the tripartite cycle of daily turmoil, pain and suffering, by allowing for the Federal and Postal employee to reach a circumstance where rehabilitation of one’s deteriorating health becomes the pinnacle of concern, unlike the lack of empathy and impassive looks of unsympathetic coldness shown by the agency, the U.S.Postal Service, managers, supervisors, and H.R. Personnel.

Time is what precisely the Federal and Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for the full working of all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, needs and requires; memories are those which one cherishes for the sake of longevity; and forgetting the never-ending cycle of progressive deterioration can only be stopped by taking affirmative steps to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire