OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: False Wisdom

The cottage industry which leeches upon failure and despair has always been around.  The false wisdom that “failure” is actually a positive outcome (because we can learn from it; because it leads to greater “growth”; that one cannot succeed without first tasting the bittersweet food of failure, etc.) is out there to be sold to, and purchased by, millions upon millions who have, indeed, experienced the outcome of failure.

There is, of course, an argument to be made: That you should look on the bright side of things; that lessons can, indeed, be learned from failure; that we might want to try things differently next time, etc.  On the other hand, most people would rather succeed, and do so on the first try, instead of experiencing the alleged “growth-potential” of failing at something.

False wisdom is pervasive.  Why?  For a number of reasons — because “wisdom” has been ill-defined; we no longer seek it, but only the benefits which can be wrought from it; because we interpret “success” purely in terms of material wealth, etc.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because of a prevailing medical condition which impacts one’s ability and capacity to continue in his or her current position, false wisdom would say that there is no choice but to endure the present circumstances.

Contact a disability lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and avoid the false wisdom which pervades even in the field of a specialized area of law such as Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer
OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: On the Verge

We often think in those terms, don’t we?  We are “on the verge” of doing something — whether of minor significance, major importance or of negligible impact.

All other species of living entities simply act and react; they do not engage in linguistic meanderings by discussing future events of unaccomplished deeds, but simply engage in the act of performance itself.  “I am on the verge of doing X” or even the further distancing statement that “X is planning to be on the verge of Y” — all statements of future intentions based upon planned coordination of unfulfilled motives.

Often, it is the perfect set of circumstances that one waits for, or a key element that remains missing before the initiation of the decision to act occurs.  To remain on the cliff’s edge, or right before the starting line, or even that twilight’s moment before one awakens, begins to stir and is aware of one’s surroundings just before the lengthy slumber of the night’s quietude turning into the frenzy of the day’s activities — that is where the “verge” remains.  Then, there are those for whom the act is never accomplished and one remains perpetually “on the verge”.

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, don’t let being “on the verge” destroy your health or potentiality left in limbo to seek other opportunities.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is an act, not a thought, and when too much thinking betrays the medical condition by overriding good sense, it is time to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and get some sound advice on whether to remain “on the verge” of making a decision to act, or to remain with one’s Agency or Postal Service while deteriorating into a perpetual state of despondency.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Application: Lost…

One’s age can be revealed as to whether, in the privacy of one’s thoughts, the ellipses is replaced with — “Lost in Space”, or even The Swiss Family Robinson.  The former is a television series that ran between 1965 and 1968; the latter, a novel by Johann David Wyss published in 1812 that few of us read anymore.  Another television series recalled from the dustbin of history’s classics; another novel and writer no longer read, remembered or studied.

They are stories about lost colonies, lost people, lost souls — lost individuals.  The fact that they are “lost” is a phenomena that society finds interesting enough to retell the story about which we would never know, except that they were somehow “found” and were able to convey their experiences.

As a child, one remembers the self-contradiction of that very issue: the young, fertile mind queried (and never could get a satisfactory answer from anyone ):  How come, if they are really lost, we’re able to watch them on television, or read about them?  If they were found, then they aren’t lost, anymore, are they, and if so, why is it interesting or even relevant?  Or, is it just of historical interest that we enjoy hearing about the experiences during the time of “being lost”?

The world today, of course, is different from the yesteryears of a bygone era; the world is all “connected”, such that there are no places in the world where we haven’t seen National Geographic photographs depicting of untraveled areas where the “lost peoples” of the universe reside and continue to survive.  The Amazonian forests are being depleted through mindless mining and destruction; the Himalayan monks who once medicated in silence wear jeans and sandals while selling trinkets to wandering tourists; and the polar bears that once roamed the northern glaciers wander beneath the pipelines that stretch amidst the wilds once dominated by the wolves that sniffed with suspicion.

Today, we live amidst civilization’s constant drum of progress and technological connectivity; instead of being lost in the wilds of a universe still undiscovered, we remain lost amidst the communities in which we live.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition must by necessity lead one to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, there is a sense of “loss” and “being lost” in at least 2 ways: The “loss” of a career once held promising; and of being “lost” in the complex, administrative process in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  In either sense of being lost, it is a good idea to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law — if only to get a roadmap to help one find one’s bearings.

Being “lost” does not mean simply that one does not know where one is geographically; in fact, most people are lost even in the midst of being surrounded by the daily din of civilization; and that is why consulting with an attorney in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement is an important aspect in finding one’s way out of the morass of being lost.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Shedding

It is nature’s way of getting rid of the old and replacing it with the new.  Sometimes, however, nature is slow in its processes and the environment surrounding doesn’t quite keep pace with the steady progress of unresponsive mechanisms — as in the horse’s winter coat that remains for weeks despite the sudden heat wave that overtakes the region.

There is the shedding brush that is often used for dogs and horses; the circular metal implement hastens the stubborn fur and hairs that remain despite the blazing heat wave that comes suddenly upon us; but perhaps nature is more attuned towards experiences in the vicissitudes of weather, waiting patiently, biding its time with a knowing smile that wintry days of the residue of cold and cool temperatures may yet follow upon a week of unseasonably warm temperatures, and maybe that’s why the unshed fur and follicles that remain are still clinging yet in order to make sure that summer is the real summer to stay, as opposed to those Indian summer days that wax and wane.

We are impatient in our response to the environment.  We want to rush ahead despite all of the warnings and signals that Nature lays before us — and so the stubborn clumps of winter coats cling desperately against the shedding brush that shears too soon.  It is our way of subverting nature regardless of what Nature is trying to tell us.  That is often what a medical condition does as well — of pain signaling our pace of recovery; of anxiety foretelling that it is too soon to return to the environment of stress; of nightmares and insomnia warning by expiating foreboding images within a stress-filled condition of life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition is preventing you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job, it may be time to begin shedding those factors which are contributing to your worsening health.

Perhaps the job was not the originating basis or reason for your medical condition; and, perhaps your Federal or Postal career was once a significant factor in your daily motivation to continue to strive each day.  However, when a medical condition becomes exacerbated by the very elements of the job, or there exists an inconsistency between your cognitive or physical capacity to perform all of the essential elements of the job, then it may be time to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Shedding is nature’s way of adapting to a changing environment; shedding is also an artificial means of recognizing the necessity for change, and when a medical condition is no longer consistent with the positional elements of a Federal or Postal job, it is time to consider shedding the job itself in order to regain the health that is nature’s priority, as it should be for you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Life’s perverse fullness

As children, many are taught that life’s promise is unlimited in potentiality, full in its discourse of uncharted waters, and expansive in its promise for tomorrow.  Somewhere, in middle-to-late years, we begin to have a somewhat more “balanced” view: not of fullness merely painted with hope and promise, but with graffiti unasked for, undesired and unwanted: the perverse side of fullness.

Life can indeed contain and present a “full plate” (as metaphors go), but the question then becomes: What is on that plate?  When a potluck dinner is coordinated, there is an interesting phenomenon that occurs, where judgments are fairly quickly made by the systematic depletion of certain foods, and the untouched portions carefully avoided.  Anonymity is crucial to the success of the endeavor itself, but defensiveness is easily assuaged by the general rules of etiquette when asked and confronted: “Oh, I plan on getting seconds” or, “My plate is too small to get everything the first round!”

Excepting social pressures and avoiding hurt feelings, we all tend to gravitate towards that which we desire; yet, we also put on our plates the food items that “balance” the diet – with knowledge and admonitions that certain foods are “healthy” for us, while avoiding those that we have specific allergic reactions to, or otherwise leave us with uncomfortable residual gastronomic pains.

Every now and again, of course, we take on too much – or, as the saying goes and the wisdom that we impart to our children, “My eyes are too big for my stomach”.  It is then that we surreptitiously look for the hidden garbage bin, and infelicitously dump the “leftovers” beneath the mountain of other paper plates, and quickly scurry away from the scene of the crime committed.  Yet, why we fret over an infraction of taking on too much, is often a mystery; is it because waste balanced by greedy overreach combines to reveal a character flaw?  Or is it much simpler than that – that we are often too hard on ourselves?  Taking on “too much” is not a crime; it is simply an anomaly in the general dictum of life’s perverse fullness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who are at a critical juncture where filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits – whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset – becomes a necessity, it is often the case that one’s “life-plate” has become overburdened: work, career, personal obligations, medical conditions, effects of surgery, etc. – the balance can no loner be maintained.  Something has to “give”, and whatever that “something” is, it usually ends up further impacting one’s health.

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits should not be forever stuck on the “pause” button; the longer it stays in a rut, the greater opportunity for deterioration and detriment to one’s health.  We often wait until it is almost “too late”; but just remember that, where life’s perverse fullness includes one’s deteriorating health, it is never a good thing to leave that which is most important, untouched – one’s health.  And, as Federal Disability Retirement is a means to allowing for one’s health to improve so that, perhaps, one day, a second career, vocation, or further productivity can be achieved, so preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the portion of the potluck meal that requires first attention.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Venting Venue

It is a necessary doorway (or so we are told) in order to attain sound psychological health; that, within the raging furnace of subsumed consciousness, of passions suppressed and grievances left unstated but yet seething beneath the subterranean caverns of unspecified aggregations of cumulative powder kegs confined by bloated egos, there remains a need for the fissure to emit the toxicities of life.  Or not.

The content of such emissions, of course, can never be challenged; it is only the context which should be questioned, in this age where subjectivity rules, the personal pronoun delegates, and the sacrosanct opinion of the “I” overcomes any Aristotelian residue of logical argumentation.  Venting is healthy (or so they say), and therapeutic, to boot.  And that which is both therapeutic and good, must by self-definition be unquestioned by any moral compass of historical certitude basked in tradition.

Thus, diatribes against parents are open game; vitriol against mothers, step-mothers, and especially mother in-laws are quite fashionable, and validated if spiced with an acerbic wit which only the unwitting can discern; and, certainly, the general population of parents, bad parents or parents who dared to restrict, set limits or otherwise constrained the alleged creativity of choice, lifestyle optioning and declarative innuendos of rejecting tradition and historicity of values, must be publicly flogged until the defamation of insensitivity is squeezed out of each, and where only the silence of conformity prevails, so that all traditions are banished into the timeless trashheaps of lost civilizations.

Perhaps it is good to vent; but when the “how”, the “where”, and the content-consciousness of “what” is left unconstrained, the issue is no longer whether, but if wisdom should properly channel it.  A stream flowing in front of a house, quietly lapping over the gentle smoothness of moss-covered rocks, may paint the picture of a serenity wrapped in the quietude of a morning mist; but when such waters turn into a raging turbulance and rise to levels which engulfs the rural solitude of a farmer’s self-sufficiency, the stream is then no longer the lifeline of gaiety and childhood warmth of memories unsheathed, but a warning that even the dreams of a butterfly can turn like a viper with fangs previously unseen.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the proper preparation of an effective OPM Disability Retirement application should never be used as the venting venue for one’s solace or therapeutic health.  That should be left for another day, a different doorway, and a separate pathway for healthy living.

It is, indeed, the things stated in that moment of anger, actions embraced in a fit of rage, or hurts flung as self-defeating propositions, which one comes to regret.  The Federal Disability Retirement application, by contrast, must be objective, thoughtful, forceful in its argumentation and legal methodology of analysis and evaluative content, and never to be deemed impotent as a result of a venting venue of unnecessary contextual lapses.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Be Wary of the Non-Substantive

The evolution of words, their meanings, the subtle connotations and implications gained or lost over time — these are all of interest, if only because they reflect changes to society, often in tumultuous ways, as earthquakes which shatter and create fissures within human normative designs, and in the midst of the rubble, a sense of loss and shattering beyond the mere tragedy of linguistic ruins.

In Aristotle’s time, the term “substance” had a specific meaning; and any superficial reading of Plato and his concerns involving appearance versus reality, the mysterious substratum which follows upon the continuity of what we see, what we suspect to remain unrevealed beneath the surface of visual phenomena; and, indeed, the history of philosophy is a dialogue of content verses context, from Descartes’ search for certitude rendering the entirety of Philosophy impotent by turning inward towards the self; of Kant’s consolation of such self-immolation by bifurcating the universe into a known and unknowable void; and into the modern realm of Deconstructionism, post modernity, Derrida’s meanderings, and the modern hermeneutics of non-religious definition of truth, reality and the condition of man.

Within that greater context, we are left with the devastation of a simple truth:  The essence of man rarely changes; we merely make way for new window dressings.  But through it all, we must always be wary of the non-substantive, and harken back to Aristotle’s concerns; that which we create and leave behind, we want to ensure that it survives with some rock-gut matter that makes a difference and actually matters.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are suffering from a condition, such that the medical condition impacts the capacity of the Federal or Postal worker to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal or Postal job, it is often that sense of loss, the discontinuity of what they were accomplishing, and the “leaving behind” of unfinished business, which pulls them from filing for what needs to be filed.

We like to finish what we began.  We want to leave a legacy, a memory of who we are, what we were, where we ended and how we got there.  The unfinished fabric of unwoven material leaves a fluff of scattered cotton fibers scattered for the winds of time to disperse.

For the Federal and Postal worker who has dedicated his or her life to a career in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service, leaving is a trauma upon a trauma of medical conditions.  But the Federal and Postal worker must always remember, that the substantive course of life must always begin with the impetus of self-motivation, and within the shark-infested waters of the undersea in lands and foreign worlds where human calamity coalesce, the self-preservation of one’s health must begin first, and only then can one step forward into the universe of the next career, the next life, the follow-up inning of future legacies.

Taking care of one’s self by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the move of wisdom if one is to secure a future of accomplishment and actualization of any remaining potentiality.  We all have reasons for not doing something.  Be wary of the non-substantive.  Focus always upon the true meaning of who we are, what we have become, and where we are going.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire