FERS Disability Retirement: Thanksgiving 2021

The pandemic of 2020 yet haunts us; and while everyone would like for it to become a vestige of a past nightmare, the reality is that the virus will likely be a part of our daily lives for the next decade or more.

Still, there is much to be thankful for — not the least of which, those who have survived the pandemic can gather together and celebrate Thanksgiving 2021.  Then, of course, there is the ongoing controversy surrounding the holiday event itself — of whether or not Bradford’s depiction of the original meal is historically accurate; of America’s history of genocidal maltreatment of indiginous peoples; of ultimately what the meta-meaning of Thanksgiving will bode for the future, etc.

Through it all, Thanksgiving has become, for most, a special time and a good excuse to prepare an elaborate meal, to get together with family and friends, and to celebrate the year’s events and experiences.  For those who believe that the “traditional” story of Thanksgiving must be “conserved” at all costs, just remember that history is never a static story, but always a vibrant telling of a past which evolves with each storyteller.

This is, in fact, an exciting time where new facts are being discovered about our storied past, and whatever the “official” story of Thanksgiving is, becomes, or is fated to be, it is the telling of stories around a dinnertable exploding with conversation, injected with love and joy, which makes for the meta-Thanksgiving of 2021 — survivors all, where blessings can actually be counted.

Happy Thanksgiving, 2021.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill,
Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Workers: Loneliness

The human condition is an entanglement with various emotions and encounters with stimuli responding to complex sets of reactive and involuntary states.  We create words to try and describe them, but are they adequate in representing such conditions?

Once overused, words tend to lose their efficacy.  We see it in news cycles where certain phrases, concepts, emotive words are repeated throughout a crisis or particular circumstance, and over time we become numb and immune to them.  “Loneliness” is a word/concept which is strange and foreign to many people.  This is supposedly a brave new world which has witnessed an explosion in social contexts through new technologies.  We are allegedly more “connected” with the “greater world” such that we have become a “global community”; and yet….

Medical conditions are often associated with loneliness.  It is an encounter which only the person impacted can fully understand.  When a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker needs to file a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the impact of a medical condition must be presented to OPM in a proper, effective manner, in order to potentially obtain an approval.

It is, indeed, a lonely process — because it is beyond the grasp and comprehension of all others, no matter how “connected” they may be.  Loneliness in the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS is a natural part of the process, and to counter that, you may want to consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer to blunt the loneliness part of the long, arduous and complex process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire