Federal Disability Retirement: Logical Consistency

For even the general population, it used to be that “logical consistency” mattered.  To be “inconsistent” showed a semblance of unreliability, and even of suspicion of truthfulness.  The difference between mere “consistency” as opposed to “logical consistency” is one that demarcates between living a life based upon principles and holding contrary opinions simultaneously.

Thus, a person may live inconsistently — a pastor who preaches fidelity to marriage but is himself a philanderer — but live with great logical consistency in expounding upon his theological belief-system.

In argumentation, the “weak link” is both the logic of the statements posed as well as the consistency of opinions held.  In a Federal Disability Retirement case, “logical consistency” is based upon the appropriateness of the statements made, the medical conditions asserted and the laws which apply in order to meet the legal criteria to become eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Mere “consistency” is not enough — i.e., to have health condition, to be unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, to be in chronic pain, etc. “Consistency” may get you a step closer to an approval from OPM, but it is “Logical Consistency” — the arguments made, the evidence produced and submitted and the requirements met in a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement case — which will cross over into an approval for Federal Disability Retirement.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest consistency alone fails to get you far enough and logical consistency awakens the slumber that results in an approval from OPM.

Sincerely,

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

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Sound of Fury

It is the partial title of Faulkner’s classic, of course — The Sound and the Fury — of the emptiness of shadows, or attempting to regain what once was, of reputation and dignity.

Much of life today is filled with the sound of fury — for what; about what; for what reason, is anyone’s guess.  But there is fury all around — against the government; against people who have opposite viewpoints; against life itself.  Whatever the sound of fury sounds like, we can hear it on talk radio, in political speeches, in Twitter and other Social Media outlets.

There are sounds, and then there is fury, and the two are different, which is why Faulkner’s title tells the full story, whereas in today’s circus of unhappy lives, the “half story” of the sound of fury is so much more apt.  For, so much of the furor and the sound of fury is about nothingness, but as passion sells and the greater sound of fury persuades and fills the void where reason and rationality once prevailed, so the sound of fury is what dominates modernity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who voice the sound of fury against the unfairness of life when a medical condition begins to impact your career, remember that Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system is available as an option to merely voicing the sound of fury.  It is a benefit which you earned when you became a Federal employee and earned a minimum of 18 months of Federal Service.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of initiating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS — not necessarily with any sound of fury, however.

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 Disability Retirement Law: The Finite Life

The concept itself may connote multiple meanings: That we have a set amount of time within which to live out our lives; and, additionally, that what is in our power is limited, contained, restrained, and bounded by our nature, our born-with talents, our circumstances, and likely the most significant factor — luck.

Are some people just “lucky”?  And, what does it mean to “have luck”?

Certainly, if you are walking down a street and you come upon an abandoned briefcase which no one claims, and you open it and find a large sum of money within — that would be considered “pure luck”.  But that doesn’t happen often in life; instead, the merging of various circumstances and events occur, where opportunities are presented to Subject-A but not to Person-B; and then, we declare of the former, “He was just lucky”, and of the latter, “She just never has any luck.”

That we have a set amount of time in this world is a concept of inconsequential results, for that is true for everyone.  But of the concept of a finite life which means that we are limited in our potentialities — well, that clearly has dire consequences, especially when it belittles and diminishes the human imagination.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition reminds us of the finite life — both in terms of our mortality as well as the limitations of what we are able to do — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) may be the answer for releasing the Federal or Postal employee from the conceptual constraints of what that definition entails.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and release yourself from the Finite Life resulting from the greater sense of mortality brought on by your medical conditions.

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 Disability Retirement: Ordinariness

That is what most of us are; but at the very beginning, should it be acknowledged, or is it better to puff up the ego when young, and allow for one to engage in the self-delusion of “otherwise”?

There is some comfort to it; yet, we all like to stand out from the rest of the crowd, and certainly, when trying to win the heart of a life-partner (yes, the term used in modernity, as opposed to the antiquated ones such as “spouse”, “husband”, “wife”, etc.), we strive to not be tagged with such a mundane label.  To be “ordinary” is to not be extraordinary.  But therein lies the comfort — of the warmth of being amongst others; as the sheep surrounded by the flock and not the loner out in the pasture, the sure target of wolves and other predatory eyes.

Moreover, when life takes a negative turn, no one wants anything but the yearning for ordinariness.  It is when we equate ordinariness with mediocrity that the sin of self-flagellation sets in.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS becomes a necessity, “ordinariness” is something you yearn for — to live the ordinary life without a medical condition; to continue your career in the Federal government; these, and much more, constitute the extraordinary life of the ordinary.

It is all a matter of perspective.  And so there it is: For most of us, being ordinary merely means that we accept our station in life; for in the end, it is the ordinary which runs the engine of society, and even though the Lamborghini may zoom past us, we all get to the same destination no matter in which car — the ordinary or the extraordinary.

Contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of embracing ordinariness, which is the location to where we all want to return.

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 Legal Services: Where Did The Time Go?

It is most often a rhetorical question — one which the answer is known, but the point is made by the query itself.  The question is thus left mostly unanswered.  Time escapes, slips away, is robbed and stolen away by the activities which we enjoy but are not conscious about in the very pursuance of engaging in an enjoyable or otherwise highly distractible participation.

The beginning of a weekend brings a smile of self-satisfaction; on the afternoon of Sunday, the query becomes: Where Did the Time Go?  As if the previous 2 days somehow had disappeared without any explanation for the time spent; evaporated without any knowledge of the activities engaged, the people having met and conversed with, etc.

Sometimes, the query is posed for decades of a frenetic life: The kids have grown up and gone; the empty nest syndrome naturally is filled by the void and echo of the same question: Where Did the Time Go?  Do we ask that same question, however, when we desire something to come to an end — or only when we wish that the circumstances would last a bit longer?

For example, when a career-ending medical condition requires the filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, do we ask during the process, “Where did the time go?”  Or, instead, do we query: When is this process going to end?

Medical conditions, likewise, often reverberate with similar questions; for, it is only the times of enjoyment when we ask the rhetorical question, and not when an undesirable condition is being experienced.

To get beyond the times of crisis and concerns, contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and get an attorney who will see you through the time of uncertainty, and get you to a point where you may again ask the question, Where Did the Time Go?

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 Disability Retirement: Stress and the Hectic Life

Most of us have little choice in the matter.  There are, of course, those very few who have the opportunity to control the pace of life — the Royal Family, perhaps, who can have servants and butlers, cooks and maids perform all of the “chores”, allowing for greater leisure time and reflective postures of contemplative living.

Wealth has always been a component of leisure; yet, the self-contradiction is evident all around us: It is the pursuit of wealth which is the obsession of modernity; wealth is allegedly pursued in order to have a life of leisure; and yet the pursuit itself is what creates the hectic life and the stresses we live in.

That is also the advertising gambit, is it not?  Almost every product sells the commodity of the “better life” — that X-product will save you time; Y-product will make you “feel” more peaceful, more powerful, more whatever.  That which we pursue to escape is the very basis of our self-immolation; that is the rule of modernity.

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, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may not get rid of — entirely — the stress and the hectic life.  However, as medical conditions are often the greatest stressor in life, to at least alleviate the hectic part of your life by allowing you to retire on disability and give you more time to focus upon your health — well, at least it is a start.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to reduce the stresses in an otherwise hectic life we seem caught up in.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Wisdom amidst noise

There is much of the latter, and too little of the former.  Further, the latter tends to drown out the former, and while it is the former which should gain prominence within the spheres of influence, it is the latter that dominates and strangulates, leaving only the emptiness of seeming profundity and relevance so that what remains is the hollowness of inaneness.

Do we consult the Aged?  Or, in this era of modernity where the cult of youth predominates, is it back to the blindness and ignorance of Plato’s Cave?  Noise is more than the drowning sounds of a multitude of chatter and drum beats; it is the sheer volume of words spoken without meaningful discourse.  How many corners in forgotten Old People’s Homes reside the wisdom of timeless insight, and yet they are left to shuffle about and stare with vacant eyes upon a world that cares only for celebration of the young.

There is noise; then, there is wisdom amidst noise; the question is, Do we listen and can we learn when the din of irrelevance takes the form of profundity when logic is lost in a world that has renounced rationality in favor of celebrity?

Those old dusty books — of Plato’s Republic to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; the writings of the Medieval Scholastics; of Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and of recent vintage, almost anything written by Roger Scruton — who reads any one of them, anymore, and less likely, do we approach them with curiosity as once in the child’s eyes wide with want of wisdom in search of it?

Wisdom is a rarity in a universe of noise, and it is the noise which deafens for timeless eternity.

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, it is important to seek wisdom as opposed to the noise of the moment.

Federal Disability Retirement Law is a complex bureaucratic process which involves many levels of administrative perplexities, and while there is a lot of hype and noise “out there” among H.R. Specialists, coworkers and even among lawyers, it is always the best course of action to seek wise counsel and advice, and to be able to distinguish wisdom amidst noise.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Claims: Determined Lives

Can it be viewed in at least two different ways and meanings?  Of a life that involves determination — i.e., in the sense of forcefulness, enduring faith and strength of character?  Or, in another sense, of being already fated, without choices or options to consider?

Thus are determined lives characterized, and bifurcated into two camps of perspectives, although the one is not exclusive of the other by necessity.

Most people experience both sets of experiences, often intersecting with one another depending upon the circumstances faced.  In some set of circumstances, one may have complete control over the direction and purposive intent of one’s life, activities involved and goals to be met — and by sheer determination, one may in fact accomplish and meet those desired ends.

Then, there are times and contexts when one’s life seems to be determined — where the control of one’s future is not within the purview of one’s own desire or effort, but by some distant force of persuasion cannot be easily influenced by one’s own will and determination.  A medical condition is one such instance.  One has no control over the fact of a medical condition, only of its effects and consequences, and even that, much of it is left in the hands of a doctor or specialist.

Loss of control — of living a determined life (second meaning) as opposed to a determined life (first meaning) — is a feeling that no one desires, and for Federal and Postal employees who sense that the loss of control is expanding into other areas of one’s life — as in one’s employment, ability to maintain a working schedule, and the loss of capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job: it may be time to consider 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.

The distinction may be a subtle one — of living a determined life (second sense) or a determined life (first sense) — but the distinction may make all the difference in the world, depending upon what your next steps are.  Consult with an attorney who specializes in helping Federal employees obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits in order to avoid the determined life (second sense), and attain a determined life (first sense).

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement claims: The tumultuous years

The tumultuous years are often remembered with a sense of awe, if not with some fondness.  The suffering endured; the turmoil experienced; even the pain sustained and seared into the consciousness of nightmares and scarred memories.  But one often looks back upon those years and reflects: I survived, and though the remembrances are a blur of activities that generously skips over the details of the suffering experienced, it was a time of enormous productivity where things were accomplished in spite of trauma of obstacles placed.

Yet, when the tumultuous years are in the “here and now”, that is not how one describes it.  It is only when it is in the distant past, when it has already been overcome, and when that proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” has already been reached. When you are still in the thick of it, fondness of memories does not prevail, and the old adage that time heals all pain is yet tested.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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, it may be a necessary next step to prepare, formulate and file an effective 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.

For such a Federal or Postal employee, those “tumultuous years” are still in the here and now, and have not been overcome; and so it is understandable that you cannot yet reflect back with any sense of perspective, awe, or of fondness for those days of turmoil.  Instead, as you are still in the thick of things, the goal is to reach that end of the tunnel where the sunshine still is bright with hope for the future, and then, years later, to look back and remember, and hopefully those memories will be one with an exclamation point of having successfully met the challenge, survived it, and have put it behind you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Dreams quashed

It has a ring of finality to it, a tone of termination, a quake of unequivocal endings; to extinguish, to suppress or to stamp out; it is often used as an example of some authoritative juggernaut putting down and out a rebellion by some wayward bandits; and so when it is conjoined and combined with another word – one that denotes hope for the future, a flicker of light for something positive – that has a positive connotation, it becomes an oxymoron of sorts, or a compound concept that cancels out one another.

The first word allows for a future hope and anticipation of things yet to come; the second, a denial of the first, a negation of that which one lives for.  Dreams quashed is an admission of defeat where once victory was in hand; a resignation to the reality where warmth of hope yet remained; and a bowing to a reality where the subjective universe perhaps allowed for thoughts beyond that which the objective world would dictate.

The compound concept of dreams quashed, when applied to a young soul just starting out in life, is perhaps a tragedy; as one gets older and reaches towards the dusk of life, or of the old man in a rocking chair rocking the finals days of breath away into the sunset, perhaps less so.  Yet, for everyone, whether young, old or in-between, dreams constitute the fiber of life’s worth, the filament that connects between despair and a will to move forward.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent, impede and block the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, the recognition that a career may be coming to an end, and anticipation of that “dream job” one finally obtained after college, and the realization that the camaraderie of working on a team, of having a unified purpose and a singular mission that always moved towards the future, to fulfill mini-dreams and projects that leaped into the beyond such that tomorrow was worth living and the next day was an anticipated victory of some proportions, perhaps microscopically relative to the greater universe, but nonetheless a platform that reflected upon one’s self-worth; these constitute those very “dreams” that appear to be in danger of being “quashed”.

Sometimes, however, the dreams of yesteryear need to be adjusted, such that it is not truly a quashing, but merely a modification.

Federal Disability Retirement is a recognition not of a dream quashed, but of a priority realized – that health is not always a given in life, and that which we took for granted was never to be freely accepted, but a gift received by a token of one’s sense of mortality.  Dreams quashed are merely hopes deceived, and preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the applicant is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is to merely delay the inevitability of another dream revived but perhaps left forgotten in the rush to make a living.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire