Early Medical Retirement for FERS Employees: Envy

It is tantamount to jealousy; perhaps its neighbor, cousin, sister or husband; and both reside in the shadows of unuttered emotions, festering by maintaining an outward appearance of calm and implacable smiles while all the while eating away beneath the surface.  It can be applied as either a noun or a verb; but in either grammatical form, it retains the character of an ugly relational cauldron of discontent.

Perhaps it is directed towards possessions; or of someone else’s good luck, greater popularity or ease of living.  The questions which sprout from envy are many and varied: Why me and not the other person?  Why does X have it better than I do?  Why does everyone think that Y is so much better?

We are rarely satisfied with our lot in life, and this crazy universe promotes envy, jealousy, comparisons and disunity, for it is all about the “I” and the “Me” — it is not a community of shared interests, but the closest we know of Rousseau’s “State of Nature” where each is on his or her own and the battle is to destroy one another.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where that medical condition impacts your ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of your job,”envy” is often not towards someone else, but of a previous life, the prior person and the former self — for that time when health was taken for granted and the capacity to do everyday, “normal” things was never given a second thought.

Such envy is not the same as the envy felt towards others; for, it is neither ugly nor unutterable, but a natural yearning for something which once was and perhaps still could be.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS may not be the solution to solving that special sense of envy, but it at least allows for a foundational annuity such that you can focus your attention back to your health and begin the road towards regaining that sense of self where envy is not of what you once were, but of what you can still become.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS: Further than once thought

Whether the distance was miscalculated, or the area was last visited decades ago as a child, the feeling that the destination is further than once thought — or that one is enmeshed in something that is “above one’s head” — is a disturbing and often distressing feeling.  An underlying sense of panic begins to envelope; then, time becomes of the essence, perhaps because the appointment specified a time or it is simply getting late.

Have you ever had that sense where you believed that you could do it, or you thought you knew — perhaps the direction that you once knew “like the back of your hand” when you were a child, or the ability to build something or repair a broken object?

Whatever the issue at hand, the chasm which is evident between your “thought-of” knowledge of a subject and the actual know-how suddenly becomes a problem.  It is one thing to sit around and talk about a subject; we can all spew our expertise in this or that subject, so long as the actualization of the matter is never tested.

At a party, everyone can be anyone, sort of like people who develop friendships on the Internet in forums like Facebook: On a flat screen, anyone can claim to be such-and-such.  And so the braggart can claim to know how to fly a plane; but would you want that claimant to take you on a ride without first “actualizing” the claimed assertions (i.e., perhaps verifying his license to fly, how many hours of actual flight lessons he or she has taken, etc.)?

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 one’s Federal or Postal job, it is a wise “next-step” to consult with an experienced attorney before considering preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

If you — as a Federal or Postal employee considering a Federal Disability Retirement application — are hit with a similar sense as that of thinking that the distance between Point A and Destination B is further than once thought in grappling with the process of Federal Disability Retirement, then it is time to consult with an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The world of others

Sometime between birth and self-awareness, there comes a point of consciousness where recognition that this is a world of others becomes unavoidable.  Perhaps it is that critical juncture where an adjustment is then made, or not, which determines whether or not children revert back to the insularity of inner worlds, or compromise and allow for greater interaction with the outer universe, despite the inherent dangers presented.

The sense of “I” as opposed to the outer universe likely comes first, but the two are so intertwined that they cannot develop without one another — the self is unable to distinguish the distinction unless there is the “other” to posit as a contrast to the self.

The World of Others is a frightening thought; for, the implications are that control of one’s own world is potentially endangered by active agents uncontrolled by one’s own will; when a foreign will is introduced into the equation, we lose control of our ability — and as importantly, our confidence — that events small and great can be shaped with predicability.

As adults, we take for granted the world of others; we are thus taught at an early age to worry only about things that we have control over, and let the rest go — lest the unfettered universe of the world of others, so expansive and without boundaries, would place so much stress upon our cognitive capacity to worry and be concerned, that a mental breakdown might occur as a result.

Look at people who are deemed “control freaks” — they are constantly anxious because they must always maintain the world around and manipulate each and every aspect of tangential lives.  In the end, the microcosm of control is of limited means; the will of others can only be boxed in when weaker personalities submit to stronger ones, but even then, the unpredictability of human nature reveals the ineffectiveness of unfettered dominance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and must necessarily “deal” with the World of Others — Agency actions; Postal harassment; adverse actions and retaliatory impositions — in a manner that distracts from the singular goal of trying to regain and maintain one’s health, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may be the best solution.

The World of Others cannot ultimately be controlled; what you have is the ability and capacity to control your own fate and destiny, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM is one such step that is within your control.  Now, as for what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management does and doesn’t do — that remains in the World of Others, and perhaps you should consider having an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law handle that aspect of the World of Others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Leisure, nature’s antonym

Observe the animals excluding the human one; what do they all do, except perhaps the male lion who awaits the predatory prowess of the lioness and her cubs who hunt for the royal crown; and the rest, of constant pecking, searching, laboring just to survive.  Nature’s law requires survival; survival mandates predatory consumption; the rest look out that they are not in the sequence of a food chain that includes one’s self.  For, it is the resting bird, the supine squirrel and the slumbering rabbit that becomes the meal of Nature’s law.

Leisure, by contrast, is a relatively modern concept.  In the yesteryears when wagons traveled upon roads uncharted, and weekends were comprised of a Sunday afternoon beyond the morning prayers and sitting upon the hard bench of a preacher’s sermon about sin and hellfire, even then the food to be prepared for the evening meal, the water to be gathered from the river beyond the horizon, and the animals that required tending lest fences left rotting allowed for the nighttime burglars of foxes and coyotes to wander uninvited for an unsolicited meal; no, leisure is nature’s antonym, unknown and relatively unheard of except in these days of modernity, where the right to full weekends and paid vacations and “down-time” and sustained interludes of systematic quietude are a necessity within this world of constant razzle-dazzle in noisy streets of uninterrupted brackets of thunderous blaring where we cannot even think without being bombarded with informational overload.

Leisure requires time; time necessitates periods of calm away from the constancy of survival’s instinct, where the appetitive division of the soul is taking a break from the search for satisfaction, thus allowing for a reflective repose, an interlude of contemplation and a self-recognition that, yes, I am actually enjoying myself in doing this mindless activity or fun engagement.  Leisure is, in the end, nature’s antonym, in the very resistance to being able to relax, to reflect and to remain relatively rested in retrospective renditions of relentless reaping in the reality of raucous and riotous living (sorry about the alliteration, but it cannot be helped for fear of further farcical fancies fettered forever from feckless and foreign flattery).

In modernity, it has somehow become turned upside down, where leisure was once unheard of, dangerous to the very instinct of survival, and rarely engaged except in the slumber of midnight exhaustion.  Now, it is declared to be its very opposite – of a necessary means to survive, and without which work and ‘making a living’ cannot be accomplished because time away allows for the restorative powers to reenergize those proverbial batteries gone dead.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to contemplate filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, there is little time to contemplate leisure as Nature’s antonym.  Chronic medical conditions tend to be a type of ‘work’ in and of itself – exhausting because of the constant attention it requires, and profoundly fatiguing upon one’s body, mind and soul.

That being said, obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement is necessary for precisely that reason – as a means of focusing upon one’s health, in order to attain a level of normalcy such that tomorrow can be another day to battle. In that sense, preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application is an exception to the rule – for, it is not leisure as Nature’s antonym, but more likened to the days of yesteryear when the one time the body required leisure was to rest in order to regain one’s health, just to have another tomorrow to battle the greater world of predatory juggernauts.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The ‘Why’ of life

Why do we do that which we do?  Do other species engage in such reflective self-assessments, or do they just perform the act without positing the query?  Or course, there is the antecedent question of whether the question itself is asked in the linguistic modality which we embrace; or, is there another form of a more subtle nature that other animals correlate and learn from without a long utterance ending with a grammatical interrogative?

Perhaps, in the mere instinctive alteration of actions future-oriented displays the capacity of other species to “learn” from past mistakes and potential dangers allowed by careless indifference, and such changes in behavior itself by fiat already answers the query of ‘why’.  Thus, the question asked in the silence of one’s subtle modification in behavioral psychology constitutes, for other species, that self-assessment, and the mere fact that a public declaration is not made, does not necessarily prove that we are unique because we persistently ask such questions without ever answering them.

Is that why human folly persists through the ages, perennially, without alteration, without revealing any wisdom gained, understanding embraced or comprehension manifested?  Do we think that because we ask the question itself, without ever coming to a consensus of answers, that we are therefore more sophisticated, more intelligent and wiser than our earthly companions as well as our predecessors?  Is a question unanswered of any value if we never gain any knowledge or greater comprehension of the universe within which we occupy, merely because of the asking or the utterance of the interrogative?

Language often becomes the “stopper” – that appearance and semblance of an act which is merely an utterance of inactivity, but because of the significance and relevance which we place upon it, is often and mistakenly thought of as an accomplishing feat.  Misjudging mere words in the interrogative form for substantive sincerity of actions often leads to inertia and being stuck in the mud of life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are suffering 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 one’s Federal or Postal job, the question asked will often paralyze, and the ‘Why’ that is never answered can invite one upon the treadmill that never goes anywhere.

It is the step beyond the question that makes all the difference, and 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, is the substantive answer that follows upon the perennial question that is never answered, never satisfied, and forever posited:  Why?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire