Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Life’s enjoyment

Are we ever taught that?  If the answer is in the negative, then from whence did we learn, attain or otherwise receive the tools to engage in the purity of sensation such that we could embrace it?  Did we become such through osmosis; from imprints; from learned behavior encompassing a lifetime of observations reinforced by wisdom’s refrain upon the blank chalkboard of our consciousness?  How does one “enjoy” life, anymore than learning to ride a bicycle, drive a car or care for a cute puppy (the last in the list, of course, need not be learned, but only be taken in by the natural affinity one has upon seeing the eyes of warmth, intelligence and fierce loyalty displayed, and is an exception and one of life’s conundrums to be accepted without questioning)?

There are many who walk about, who have absolutely no clue as to how one can, should or would have any enjoyment at all; and thus the total immersion in one’s work, or projects begun and always left unfinished – for, to complete them would mean that something ended, and that would force one into a reflection about the meaning, value and relevance of one’s activities, would it not?

One often hears the familiar refrain:  “I don’t know how to enjoy life; to me, unless I am busy with work, chores, updating my Facebook page, texting friends or jogging, I can’t be happy.”  Productivity is the measure of success; time set aside for vacations – despite still doing email, texting, messaging or other forms of “connectivity” as advertised to be the horror of all horrors if loss of it were to ever occur – is a concept that questions the very meaning of life’s enjoyment.  For, if one pauses for a moment to reflect:  Is the treadmill one is on merely for purposes of getting off for a moment, then to get right back on in order to find, again, a time to get off for another period of repose?

If so, how is that any different from Camus’ essay on the absurdity of life’s perspective as seen through the eyes of a French Existentialist, and specifically, of the Myth of Sisyphus and the condemnation by the gods to roll the boulder up the hill, only to watch it tumble down, then to engage in the eternal monotony of pushing it back up, only to observe its descent?

Life’s enjoyment, and the promise for tomorrow, was always meant to be more than that – of a daily sense of joy, a widespread sensation of contentment, and an ease of burden when once we were innocent children playing with but a ready laughter to give.  It is the truth that haunts, and especially the proverbial quip about the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.  With the persistent onslaught of stimuli unable to be resisted, we allow for the daily bombardment to deplete the little energy we have in reserve.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition not only intervenes in the ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, but further, depletes, diminishes and – ultimately — destroys even the potentiality to enjoy life and all of its complex presentations, the option to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits must be considered.

Yes, it is a long and arduous bureaucratic process.  No, going through the process will not enhance, for the short term, life’s enjoyment.  But in the end, necessary changes are called for – nay, compelled by – medical conditions that interrupt life’s enjoyment, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is to enhance that potential for the future enjoyment of life’s joys, while perhaps foregoing the short-term stubble of inconvenient interludes of angst-driven necessities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Imprisoned souls

Do we immediately know of the figurative sense of such a concept?  As the Medieval times of dark, dank and dire dungeons no longer house the tortured detritus of human excrement cast aside upon the nod of displeasure noted by a King, a Prince or a scorned Court of Royal Courtier, so the immediate presumption is that such a term must encompass some cognitive obstacle or encircling of a mind otherwise in agony.  And what of the second term in the concept – does it denote something separate and apart from the whole of a human figure – that essence of a person that tells us that there is something beyond an amalgamation of neurotransmitters and physical presence such that the entity is distinguishable from an amoeba, a flower or those closest of cousins, the chimpanzee?

When a person is looked upon with empathetic concern, is it the image of the individual that gives rise to the sensitivity, or the soul that is embattled within the confines of the exoskeleton that defines the profile like the shadow of an image one sees of a person standing against the lamplight in the dark of night?

When a scream is emitted from the depths of a human uttering, of the physical intonation and shrill cries reverberating through the caverns of a mouth widened in anguished turmoil, do we reach out to provide comfort merely to the physical shape and form of a human being because we can relate to an entity so closely recognizable as that which is reflected in the mirror of our daily lives, or is there that “something” which theologians continue to haunt us with, that transcends the superficial appearance of sense impressions that is discussed from ages foregone, from Plato’s Forms that constitute the “real” reality beyond the appearance of things, and the clinically antiseptic explanations of Hume’s Empiricism that provides a foundation of separation and divide that laid the groundwork for the future of Existentialism a century or more hence?

We are, all, in a general sense, imprisoned souls anguishing in the turmoil of daily angst, but for the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who must also contend with a medical condition, such that the medical condition is about to cut short a promising career, the future is often viewed from a bleak perspective, and the daily harassment from Supervisors and Managers only exacerbates the troubled lives we must all manipulate and maneuver through.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not an easy process; it may be, however, the only option left and available for the Federal or Postal worker who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.

In that sense, the Federal or Postal worker who is left with the best option available – of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM – is considered an imprisoned soul, for it is not only the medical condition that impacts upon the choices left in life’s trials and challenges, but the constraints and curtailments one self-imposes by agonizing over one’s future as he or she steps forward in trying to maneuver through a complex administrative process.

How to free one’s self?  By simply acting; by moving forward, even if the future is somewhat unknown and uncertain; for, in the end, it is movement itself that distinguishes the difference between life, imprisoned souls, and deadened entities that merely survive.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Analogies

It is the greater concept often developed through metaphors and similes; but to the extent they are now of use depends largely upon the shared cultural context within which we live.  If Classical literature is no longer the common thread of meaningful discourse, can references to them in creating analogies work?  To share that a person’s tragedy is more Shakespeare than Milton, or that the individual’s circumstances remind one more akin to The Road to Wigan Pier than Brideshead Revisited, can such conversations take on a relevant pathway if the intellectual divide fails to be crossed?

You can, of course, always Google and quickly get the quick rundown of the literary reference through electronic Spark Notes, or some other venue of shortcutting the arduous endeavor reserved in former times; but even that may reveal an inadequacy that cannot be overcome.  For, of what part of the book or author is being referred to?  Is it any particular play or poem, or the entirety of the work itself?  Is it any specific character or scene?

Some philosophers have posited that, by and large, we comprehend and make sense of the objective world through the use of analogies, built upon by metaphors and similes; for, language itself is a conglomerate of such literary devices.  To face the universe purely for survival’s sake is to forego the need for imposing the ordering through language; animals do not require it, but in the most rudimentary of mechanisms that advance warning signs and preemptive communications; it is only in the arena of human constructs where categorical imperatives need to be assigned in order to filter the world into more palatable and circumscribed entities for processing the complexities we have created.

Analogies thus communicate through the medium of shared conceptual constructs, where we draw in the recipient and spectator, the audience of our targeted comparisons, by relating a shared, known and familiar encapsulation of linguistic constructs.  It is only when the strangeness of the metaphor, the unfamiliarity of the reference, creates further puzzlement and loss of connection, that problems occur and relationships become fissures of language games gone awry.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees 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 positional duties, the applicability of providing a foundational construct of relating one’s story to an “administrative specialist” at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will often involve – and require – analogies by default.

Use them sparingly; utilize discretion; and, in writing up one’s narrative in response to the questions posed on SF 3112A (Applicant’s Statement of Disability), remember that this is not the time, the context or the best place to try out radical, untested metaphors, similes or analogies.

Thus, while those who have read Orwell’s work, The Road to Wigan Pier, as well as Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, may find a clever and appropriate place in one’s Applicant’s Statement of Disability to make some brilliant literary reference, it may be more prudent to stick to the medical facts and incorporate those supportive documents in dealing with analogies of life, health, and the nexus between the latter and one’s Federal or Postal job duties.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire