OPM Medical Disability Pensions: The Life We Lead

The life we lead may not be the one we chose; or, more likely, the life we “now” choose to lead — if we even have a choice.  One might argue that we always have a choice; the only real question is:  Are we willing to pay the price for the choices we make?

Often, we fall into things.  Human beings are complex creatures; the person we were years ago rarely is identical to the “now” of that individual.  Perhaps that explains the divorce rate in this country; of commitments encompassing “till death do us part” are rarely embraced, anymore.

And the choices which are out there make for compounding effects when it comes to the life we lead.  Decades ago, society imposed greater structural restrictions:  School teachers who were found to possess any tinge of moral turpitude would be dismissed and disgraced; heads of companies who divorced were summarily terminated; and those thought to hold rather unconventional opinions were shunned and often isolated.  Is this a good thing?

The perfection of a median — a point “in between” the two ends of a spectrum of excesses, or often referred to as the Aristotelian view of a good life — is often the balance to be sought.  The life we lead is, too often, solidified by the youthful indiscretions of excesses embraced in youthful vigor; whereas, in later years, regret tends to soften our extravagant early years.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have come to a point in later life, where the Civil Service job which once required extreme energy, daily commitment and a stark challenge to even the healthiest of individuals, but now, in later life, medical conditions have reached a critical juncture where they are no longer compatible with continuation in that job — it is perhaps time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Contact a FERS Medical Retirement expert, that is, a U.S.-licensed attorney who specializes in the practice area of Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider the life you lead and want to lead — now.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Difficult Times

We tend to think that ours represents the apex of such characterizations, but such a view would betray our ignorance of history.  Whether defined within the limits of our own personal circumstances, or by contrast to others within the same country; or, if one takes into account the world — other nations — “difficult” becomes relative, and can never be taken in a vacuum within the historicity of such a linear perspective.

Reading about the Great Depression, one immediately recognizes the fallacy of attributing these difficult times in descriptive adjectives which fail to accurately portray an appropriate contrast to modernity; of going hungry for days; of rampant homelessness; of rudimentary health care, and so much more.

Yet, comparing one’s present circumstances to prior historical models does nothing to diminish the crisis one experiences today — for, indeed, these are difficult times, and very little comfort can be achieved by hearing the words, “Yes, but others have had it worse”.

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 of more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, recognizing one’s own “difficult times” is the first step towards initiating the necessary process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement claim through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS.

Whether the Great Depression or other malevolent times were worse or not, matters little.  What matters is to move forward in life regardless of past historical circumstance, and to contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law so that these difficult times may see the light of a future which offers greater hope than the despair of modernity, or of past times, as well.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Medical Retirement Benefits: Forever and a Day

The concept itself is a conundrum; it is to emphasize the extension beyond eternity when eternity itself cannot be extended by self-definition.  The “add-on” of the extra day provokes the idea that it goes just a little further than that which we can comprehend; and yet, we can barely, if at all, comprehend the concept of “forever” itself.

For certain ideas, can we “feel” concepts better than we can “understand” them?  That, in and of itself, of course, is a puzzling concept; for, words, ideas and concepts are posited to intellectually comprehend as opposed to applying an emotive conceptualization of it.  To “feel” that you understand a word or a concept is quite different from comprehending it intellectually.  Yet, doesn’t the idea of “pain” fit into that category?

A person who experiences a great deal of pain may not be able to understand it, and yet he or she “feels” it, and in the very existential experiencing of the phenomena, comprehends it better than the person who merely reads about it but never experiences it.  Furthermore, the person who “understands” pain has a greater comprehension of the phrase, “forever and a day” — for the two are similar in experiences; the one is a medical condition that can barely be described; the other, a concept of existence that is similar to unendurable pain.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the feeling that life has become “forever and a day” is a familiar one, precisely because of the unendurable stresses inherent in trying to balance work, home, the medical condition and the growing stresses of it all.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS is a step towards realizing that days do not need to become lost in weeks, weeks into months and months into years, where the pain or other medical condition, physical or psychiatric, must by necessity be an unendurable conflagration of existence.

FERS Disability Retirement is a means to an end — the end being, having the time and energy to focus upon one’s health; the means, to retire medically from a situation that has become untenable; all, in order to recognize that “forever and a day” begins with a day that can be differentiated from the “forever” that never seems to end.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The Inside View

There is the “outside” perspective as opposed to the “inside view”, and that is the mistake people make in various sectors of life: The “outsider” believes that, from a position and perspective of detachment and therefore objectivity, he or she is able to better assess, evaluate and analyze the event, situation or conditions experienced than by those on the “inside”.

By contrast, the “insider” views the outsider with suspicion, contending that he or she has no idea about the experiences and existential difficulties faced by the insider, and that a detached, objective viewpoint which fails to take into consideration the subjective, “personal” side of things misses the essential point of the issue.

It is the tension which exists between the townspeople and the “out-of-towner”; the one who lives in a community as opposed to the renter or investor; or of the person who drives around the neighborhood admiring the green lawns, the peaceful nature and the tranquility of a community, hoping to one day purchase a home there without knowing the problems inherent — say, that the water is contaminated or that there has been a rash of burglaries on the rise in recent years.

How does one break the invisible wall between the inside view and the outside perspective?  When does the demarcation between the two disappear?  Do numbers of years living within a community determine whether an outsider becomes an insider?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application because of a medical condition which has come to a critical point where the Federal or Postal worker can no longer perform one or more of the basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it often “feels” like one has all of a sudden become an “outsider” again — not only from one’s own agency or the Postal Service, but moreover, because of the complexity of the administrative procedures and bureaucratic morass of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — of the sense that the whole process is strange and detached.

Consulting with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is a good first step in bridging the gap that widens when first encountering that feeling, in order to get an “inside view” of what it takes to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement Attorney

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Today (pause), and Tomorrow

The parenthetical insertion creates a “real-time” interlude, and the addendum of the grammatical mandate, the unnecessary comma, extends the strained quietude of wanting to engage the sequential utterance.  There is the reality of “now”, which we occupy, fill and exist within, and the expectation of a tomorrow which never exists as a wholeness contained within a specified time period, but merely in anticipated form within the imagination of our cognitive universe.  To this, we can always add “yesterday”, as well, but that is merely of memories passed, reflected in the neurocognitive cellars of stored images.

It is of today and tomorrow which matters for the survival of a species, with yesterday reserved for learned experiences allowing for avoidance of mistakes in order to enhance one’s probability for remaining today and advancing into tomorrow.

Of yesterday, there is nothing that we can do, other than to learn from it and squeeze out the corners of lessons presented.

Of today, there are the problems known, the concerns we have to deal with and the stresses we are forced to tolerate.

And of tomorrow, we have to place into bifurcated boxes of manageable sizes, lest the overwhelming contents spill over to make us all go mad.

For, without the ability and capacity to filter, store and set aside, the extent of problems encountered, stresses envisioned or the troubles tormenting, would be of such quantitative overload as to leave us paralyzed daily.  Of chores left undone, relationships needing tethering, obligations still remaining and work much wanting; where will it all end except in the tombstones of unfinished business?

We are thus stuck in the rut of negation; some, in memories reflected over time enhancing in magnitude and perfection as duration allows for the fissures, wrinkles and ugliness of that once “today” to disappear, such that the retrospective life becomes the paradigm of lost souls.  Or, of those tomorrows yet to come, where we ruminate over troubles that have not yet occurred but we imagine them to become, and crisis that have yet to rear its horrific head, or so the expectations grounded in fear and loathing would have us believe.  Of the before and after, we spend so much time worrying about, and lose sight of the ambiance of today.

Today is what matters; today is the time to plan for tomorrow; today is the moment of applying principles failed by yesterday’s lack of discernment.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the focus upon “today” is the parachute that will catch the wind stream for tomorrow’s security. And of the past?  Let it remain with memories foretold of positive thoughts and lessons learned for tomorrow, and not of haunting nightmares forgotten but for awakenings in the middle of the night.

Prepare well a Federal Disability Retirement application, and formulate it effectively, and file it today – not tomorrow, and certainly do not ruminate upon yesterday’s failings, as that has already passed without fruition of a future left unseen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: How we treat one another

Separation, distance, objectification and electronic means of communication; the loss of human emotions in the very living of life, where the organic has become equivalent to the android, where the original concept encompassed an admixture of synthetic humanity and the combining of components both human and mechanized – and so the artificial construct that we feared in those novels of sci-fi nightmares has, in fact, been realized.

Orwell’s major work, 1984 is, by comparison, both prescient and outdated.  The underlying concept of a totalitarian state is still relevant, but the technological means by which we have achieved such a state of affairs, and the naïve assumption that we would somehow be informed enough to recognize when we are being “had” by such powerful forces of domination, leaves one breathless with puzzlement.

Existentialism, especially of the French version (i.e., Sartre and Camus, as the two paradigmatic participles – borrowing from the grammatical meaning and translating it into the positional element of influence) argues at the inception from its philosophical origination that language games geared towards objectification and distancing from the humanity of worth, value and normative constraints as defined by the traditions evolving from social contracts, is intended to allow for the justification of the depraved to engage in violent acts of crimes against humanity.

Language allows for cruelty.  How we describe, in what form and manner the grammatical application separates, distances and isolates groups into demeaning and debasing linguistic caricatures that alters the essence of who we are, allows for how we treat one another to result in the horrors of 20th Century camps of torture, totalitarianism and total war.  We can couch language and hide behind it to do as we want.  Power left in the hands of evil, with the meaninglessness of language disseminated among a gullible population left without dictionaries and relying upon the technological information controlled by an elite few, will only progressively decay and deteriorate the foundations of liberty and freedom.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who already experience the consequences of having to submit to linguistic elasticity, meaningless phrases of power and totalitarianism are already in a difficult position when a medical condition begins to impact and prevent the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in the career one has chosen.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often a test of sorts that reveals how we treat one another, and it is always better to know at the outset who one’s friends and caring associates are, than to remain in ignorance while the knives are sharpened for the time you turn your back and expect some protections to have watchful eyes while the weakness of debilitating medical conditions continues to progressively deteriorate.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The wish for erasure

Once, we used pencils because such implements are almost always accompanied by an eraser.  It was an acknowledgment of human imperfection, of the potentiality for making a mistake, and the realization that any extent of human activity should recognize the wish, the need and reality for erasure.  But that such corrections could similarly be made for lives lived, hurts fostered and damages perpetrated.  Yet, the historical requirement that has necessitated the wish for erasure has itself been erased, or significantly diminished – of a conscience instilled and allowed for maturation, where remorse, regret and readiness of heart for redemption touches upon the deeper essence of one’s soul.

Modernity has persuaded itself that guilt is but an anthropological myth created to make subservience a cauldron of psychological neediness.  Psychology is king; pharmacological stupor is the methodology for erasure, if not avoidance; and, what once we wished for in a guilt-ridden caravan of emotional remorse opening the door to forgiveness, regret and redemption, is now repressed to hide the once glorious sheen of the god in man, the elevated soul beyond the appetitive beastliness, and a lowering of that pinnacle of creation where we once walked leisurely beyond the garden of heavenly quietude, now banished from paradise into a constant flux of a state of war and cruelty.

Yet, despite attempting to destroy the wish for erasure, that goal to erase the wish for erasure has itself been an imperfect and unperfected initiation.  Somehow, the flame still remains, and like the eraser that never quite completely does the job, but allows for that faint image of writing to still remain, the wish for erasure leaves the humanity of man within grasp of redemption.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the analogy of the pencil with the eraser is akin to the circumstances the Federal and Postal employee finds him/herself in:  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a means to start anew, by “erasing” the career one could not complete, but allowing for continuation in the private sector, perhaps another vocation, a second career, or a means to engage an activity for productivity in another realm.

The wish for erasure has always been a part of human desire, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is the closest one may get to reclaiming that redemptive opportunity to engage a future yet untold.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: False Promises

Is it an oxymoron?  If it is made, how can it be negated by untruth; for, if it is a nothingness at the outset which compels null and void the substantive content of the thing itself, how can it purport to be what it is while at the same time creating an abyss of meaninglessness?  A promise cannot be false if it is to have the very meaning of a promise; and yet, we know that there exists such falsity of posited assurances, if not proposed by dishonest individuals and con-men, then at least by unintentional or otherwise mistaken pillars of vain malfeasance.

False promises are not promises at all; they are likened to nonsensical statements, which are similarly non-statements precisely because of the meaningless nature of the declarations.  Just as Bertrand Russell’s playful cunning in the statement, “The present King of France is bald” – that is both nonsensical and allegedly violates the laws of logic (specifically the Law of the Excluded Middle) – so, false promises cannot exist as either falsehoods or as promises precisely because they negate each other in their very existence side by side.

But in the world of pragmatic affairs, we know that they are made each and every day.  We are promised daily, and falsely, by individuals, entities, agencies and organizations, whether with or without a handshake, sometimes in writing, other moments by verbal implication, and even every now and again sprinkled with a smile, a nod, a wink and a prayer.  Promises made have an expectation of being kept; and broken promises, like false ones, cut deep into the wounds of betrayal, and haunt us with a profound sense of anger and reeking with the vengeful fury of a violation well beyond mere resentment.  There are few things in life that compensate for false promises.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, Federal Disability Retirement is just one of the few compensatory alternatives to the expectation of a false promise made, implied or otherwise denoted.  Perhaps it was the long hours of dedicated and uncompensated time devoted; or the expectation that loyalty would be a bilateral avenue, as opposed to a unilateral desecration of implied trust.

In any event, one would have thought that “accommodations” would be made upon the interruption of a medical condition, when the medical conditions resulted in one’s inability to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal position or Postal job.  But, alas, such accommodations cannot be made; the dedication of those many years, and sometimes decades, cannot be recalled but for yesterday’s contribution; and the promises seemingly made cannot be false when, all of a sudden, a question is fired back:  Is it in writing anywhere?  What or who ever gave you that idea?

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is often not just the best alternative, but the most prudent option remaining and still available – in rebuttal to false promises made, and truth declarations long forgotten and left behind in the corridors of remembrances no longer written in stone, but disappeared into the office shredder worth the value of the paper it was never written upon.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire