Federal Disability Retirement: Fate & Consciousness

The concept of fate attaches a sense of termination and determined outcome; and consciousness beyond mere awareness of presence where a self-reflective realization of one’s self, the “I” in a world among others, and the further mirror-image of stepping outside of the self and having the capacity to recognize the “I” as another you among a multiplicity of others, creates the question of free will, self-determination and conscious action.

Whether the end of anything and everything is predetermined; whether causal forces in a universe of physical laws control and conform individual actions; and further, whether one’s conscious and deliberative intent makes a whit of difference in the macrocosmic universe of dialectical forces, is a puzzlement to be pondered perennially in Western Philosophical thought,especially in today’s debate involving the attempt to make language conform to pure scientific materialism.

Whatever the outcome of the debate encompassing mind/body dualism, the existence or not of consciousness where materialism and language reductionism to physical terms involving neurotransmitters and organic, genetic compounds explaining behavior and psychology, the individual who must live and act still holds to the idea that one’s choices in life make a difference, however small, insignificant and irrelevant. And, for the singular individual, a decision which may have no impact in a macro sense, but of a large and important consequence in the tiny, microcosmic universe of one’s personal life, whether fate and deliberative consciousness in decision-making makes any difference at all, is something we cling on to.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from continuing to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal or Postal position, the fate and conscious decision to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS, or CSRS Offset, is a major decision of life-shaking and earth-shattering proportions.

In the end, the great philosophical debates which have dominated Western thought must be put aside when personal life-events predominate. Such mind-enhancing discussions are nice for a day, or between colleagues and in the ivory tower of academia; but the reality of a medical condition, the possibility of the end of a career, and the need to decide upon one’s future, while all of relative insignificance in proportional contrast to The Great Debate; in the end, for the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Worker, the onset of a medical condition and the need to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits from OPM will possess greater significance than the question of fate, consciousness and the consequences of believing in a predetermined universe. Or, to paraphrase Bertrand Russell, when one is overcome with thoughts about the greater universe, it may just be that we have an unsettled stomach.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Chekhov’s Short Story, “Old Age”

Anton Chekhov is perhaps the singular master of the genre known as the “short story”, and it is owing to his background as a physician that he possessed the insight and sensitivity to be able to capture the plight of the human condition, with all of its suffering, loss of hope, and emotional turmoil, through cruelty, disregard, unforeseen circumstances, and unintended pathways to disaster.

In his short story, “Old Age,” there is the point where one of the two old men shook off a moment of feeling, setting apart and brushing aside a poignant and appropriate time when the shedding of tears would have allowed for the humanity of the old man to show, to reveal itself, and to expiate himself of the pain of the past.  Instead, because of pride, or perhaps shame, because he stood before the other old man, he hid the emotion and went about his business.  Later, when he comes back to the same spot, the old man tries to recapture the moment, to replicate and reconstruct that lost emotion.  It could not be done.  It is a lesson for all, that there is an appropriate time, place, and moment for everything.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, there is the “appropriate time” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Each Federal or Postal employee knows that time.

Indeed, each “feels” the time, but will often just shake off that nagging sense.  One always hears of the hope for a miracle — “perhaps I will get better”; “perhaps it will be better tomorrow”; perhaps…   But when the time comes, to procrastinate is merely to compound the problems of the day, only to revisit the same issue later, but encountering an exponentially magnified issue:  time is running out; that moment of doing it with optimal circumstances has passed; and now we must deal with the greater problems of the present.

Chekhov is relevant because, while human beings — whether in Russia or here, whether years past or today — change in names and appearances, the essence of humanity remains constant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire