FERS Medical Retirement: The Better Fallacy

We can always wait for better; that tomorrow will bring a resolution to the problem, or maybe even the day after.  In doing so, we look for the signs of better; of a subtle improvement here, an incalculable, immeasurable but justifying quantification there; and, of course, procrastination becomes the favored cousin in the private, insular world of the better fallacy.

Can an objective criteria be applied?  Will Popper’s Falsification Test bring out an objective assessment, or will we continue to delay and delay where the better fallacy can convolute our thoughts and delay the necessary judgment for making a decision?

The truth is, the wisdom of the ages betrays the better, and the fallacy we are fooled by always denies the historical truth: Things always get worse.  But look at history, you are wont to argue — of centuries of toil and despair, of Leviathan’s description of solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short; but of modernity, where so many diseases have been vanquished and poverty incomparably mitigated by contrast.  Perhaps.  But the Better Fallacy still prevails.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a medical condition where 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, never wait for “better” to become fulfilled, lest the better fails to achieve what the replacement should be considered — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

For, like perfection’s harm, the wait for better will often lead to a bitter result, where the dreams of better are merely a mirage better left to nighttime’s despair of terrifying nightmares.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Salve of Talk

We used to recognize the distinction between “talk” and “action”, but modernity has blurred the difference through social media outlets which purport to elevate words as “action-words”.  It is enough in this day and age to merely state that “X is Y”, even if there has been no actual transformation of X becoming Y other than a declarative sentence stating it as a fact.

Some philosophers have, of course, posited that certain words do, indeed, constitute “actions”; but for the most part, the history of linguistic malleability has resisted, and the distinction still holds between words and actions.  Thus, to say that “X was run over by a truck and lay in the hospital” is quite different from the fact of such a description; and anyone who has experienced pain can attest to the differentiation posed.

Talk in recent times, of course, has become a kind of salve.  There is therapy where once there was penitential confession; and families in general believe that “talking about things” is a good thing.

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, talk only gets you so far.

Preparation, formulating and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the step beyond the salve of talk, and to take that first “action-step”, you may want to contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

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 Benefits: Lives that matter

It is a trite truism to acknowledge that, If everything matters, then nothing matters; for, in the end, if all X is Y and all Y is X, then there is no distinction between X and Y.  That is the “rub”, though, isn’t it?  It isn’t just that “All X is Y” that can stand alone — for, if some of Y is Not-X, then a distinction can still be made between X and Y, whereas if there is even a scintilla of Y that is Not-X, then X neither subsumes Y entirely and Y doesn’t lose its identity completely.

Put another way, if everything is meaningless, then meaning itself loses its very applicability.  We can get lost in such hypothetical tropes, but when it comes to human beings, it is the individual that matters, the singularity which evokes relevance and the relationship itself that solidifies what “matters”.

Thus, the recent “controversy” about whether or not certain groups of individuals “matter” in contradistinction from the greater group of the whole will always rise to the level of contentiousness and conflict so long as there lacks a “connection” or relationship between individuals.  Individuals matter only so long as there is a relationship — the “I” to “thou” connection, as opposed to a perspective of subject-to-object.  That is, in the end, how mass murderers and genocidal extermination processes engaged by nations and groups are allowed to occur — by the treatment of individuals not in the “I-thou” relationship, but as individuals treated as objects that do not matter.

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 becomes apparent pretty quickly that the lives that matter are those who are “productive”, and the very “meaning” of one’s life is determined by the Federal Agency or the Postal Service based upon your productivity and capacity to work.

When that realization comes about, it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the first step in that process is to contact and consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the perspective of lives that matter continues to be undermined by the attitude of a Federal Agency or the Postal unit which treats the lives that matter as mere objects, and not as valued subjects.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Being another

When you read that some actor, writer, politician or commentator (dare we ask why, in a single sentence, all of them have been lumped side by side) says X or does Y, we often allow our own ego as the “one-upsmanship” to overtake us, and we imagine that, if we were there, we would have said “XX” instead of “X”, or done “YY” instead of the mere “Y”.

At the moment, though we rarely recognize the egocentric reality of what we are doing, we actually “become” that actor, that writer, that politician or that commentator, and assume the role and identity of the person we have replaced in our mind’s eye.  Insanity, of course, comes about when a further step is taken — of believing not what we “would” have done or said, but incontrovertibly becoming that someone whom we are not.

The quantity of time expended within the insularity of our lives is astounding; and the personal — albeit creative and imaginative — excursions into another type of virtual reality consumes a greater part of each day, every hour and multiple minutes of our disjointed lives.  Perhaps this occurs in a quick flash of a stream of passing thoughts; or a long, enduring daydream that recurs through the day, the week, and over a month’s time; but of whatever duration, being another is something that we all do, and always at the expense one’s own ego and those who are close to us.

Being another also occurs in hopeful encounters with our own circumstances.  We imagine that we are ourselves, but also another who is simultaneously identical and yet different.  That is what a medical condition does — it divides the reality of who we are today from the memory of who we were yesterday, and further projects a person of what will become of us in the future, near or far.  Often, emotions become entangled in the images of who we are, and so regret pervades the past, anxiety overwhelms the present, and fear pursues the future.

Medical conditions tend to inject a factor that we have no control over, and it is that loss of control, combined with who we see ourselves as, and who we would rather be or become, that presents a dilemma: As circumstances change, can we continue to remain who we are and allow for being another — the “other” being the person who we once were — to continue as if such changes of circumstances never occurred?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition has “changed” a person to the extent that he or she is now “another” — someone not quite dissimilar to yesterday’s you but also not identical to today’s yesterday of the person we just met — because of circumstances beyond one’s control, it may be time to do that which only another in a different time and distinguishing context may have contemplated: 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 reality is that we are never the same as who we were yesterday, and last year’s child of imaginative “being another” has grown into the “other” that was once imagined.

In the end, the essence of who we are will not have changed because of a medical condition, and what we do in life beyond filing for and obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement is more important than feeling self-pity for not having fulfilled one’s desire for being another, who was yesterday’s another in a different role from today’s another or tomorrow’s another.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Fishes, Streams, Rivers and Ponds

They are, in the end, interconnected; yet the conceptual distinctions allow for separateness, such that we can value each independently.  And much of the waterways which filter throughout the ecosystem remain invisible and underground, via caverns and unconfined aquifers; but that which we see with the naked eye, we assume to be the reality of the entirety of that which we hold to encompass the universe of our existence.

Thus does Berkeley’s doctrine simply contained in the phrase, “Esse est percipi” retain a kernel of truth, but forever vulnerable to ridicule if misunderstood in the context of linguistic philosophy.  What is perceived is, indeed, the universe of one’s contextual concerns; but we all recognize that objects exist outside of the perceptual periphery of our immediate perspective.

Thus do fishes, streams, rivers and ponds exist beyond our vision of direct perception; but even upon encountering them,  we recognize that the depth of each, the variety of living organisms, and the corridors of natural flowing underground worlds reach well beyond that which we see.  The complexity of human beings comprise an entity of a similar nature, such that depth, encounters and unknowable reaches could easily be conversed and replaced as fungible goods and translated words.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to become a problem at work, it is precisely this puzzle of being replaceable which often irks the ego.  Filing for Federal disability benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often viewed as giving up or giving in; when, in fact, the truth of the matter is that it is a means of attending to the importance of one’s health and well-being.  But others in the agency and the U.S. Postal Service often view the potential Federal Disability Retiree as “that person” with a label and a superficial concoction of societal designation.

It is that limited encounter and confrontation which shows the lack of depth of certain people, while everyone wants others to know that, past the fishes, streams, rivers and ponds which one may see upon meeting the Federal or Postal employee suffering from a medical condition, such that the health condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, there is extenuating further, a vast depth of subterranean interest and an ocean of personality which others never cared to inquire about, and of which no one may ever know once the door closes and the quietude of life continues beyond.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: An Expectation of Disaster

Most lives are lived with an expectation of unease; if things are going smoothly, we look with suspicion at what will come from around the corner; if calm and quietude prevails, we consider it merely a precursor to a major storm; and if good fortune comes our way, there is a leeriness as to the strings attached.

Perhaps distrust is based upon justifiable historical events; or, as news is merely the compilation of tragic events gathered into a compendium of daily interests, so our skewed perspective of the world merely reinforces what our childhoods entertained.  With a foundation of such natural tendencies to see the world with suspicion, when a medical condition impacts a person, the expectation of crisis is only exponentially magnified.

Suddenly, everyone becomes the enemy, and not just the few who are known to lack heart; and actions which were previously normative, becomes a basis for paranoia.  Chronic pain diminishes tolerance for human folly; depression merely enhances the despair when others engage in actions betraying empathy; and the disaster which was suspected to be just around the corner, closes in on us when pain medications fail to palliatively alleviate.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing all of the essential elements of one’s job, the bifurcation between the personal and the professional, between play and work, often comes crumbling down upon us, and signs of potential trouble portend to indicate to us that it may be time to “move on”.  That impending sense of doom?  It may be upon us.  That calm before the storm?  The reality of what the agency is contemplating may prove you right. And the potential loss of good fortune?

Agencies are not known for their patience.  For the Federal or Postal employee who is no longer one of the “good old boys” of the network of productive employees because of a medical condition which is beginning to impact one’s ability to maintain a daily work schedule, or perform at the level prior to the onset of a medical condition, consideration should be given to preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Time is often of the essence, and while most expectations of impending disasters are unfounded, the behavior of Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service can never be relied upon, any more than the weather can be predicted a day in advance.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Facts and Explanations

There is often a widespread misconception that “facts” need no elucidation or explanation, and somehow speak for themselves.  There are, indeed, times when self-imposed limitation of apparent eloquence and bombastic, grandiloquent and pretentious verbosity is of use; for, scarcity of adjectives and brevity of prose can leave the plains and tundra of a descriptive narrative’s call for less inhabitants, and not more, to reveal the beauty of the linguistic landscape; but even in such instances, facts still require explanation.

Facts without explanation constitute mere artifacts floating in a vacuum of a historical void.  It is thus the prefatory context provided by explanatory delineation, or the sentence next which elucidates the relevance and significance of an event before. Without the explanation, facts merely remain an artifice with a lack of architectural integrity, lost in the quagmire of historicity without dates, times or epochs of reference.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the misunderstanding between the conceptual bifurcation of “facts” and “explanations” is often exponentially magnified to the detriment of the Federal Disability Retirement applicant when one presumes that “medical facts” speak for themselves.

Thus does the Federal or Postal worker who is preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application simply bundle up a voluminous file of medical records and declare, “See!”  But such declarative intonations accompanying files of “facts” do not explain in meeting the legal criteria to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement.  An explanation is in response to the query by a governmental agency and bureaucracy which requires that justification through explanation will meet the preponderance of the evidence test in being eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Yes, there are some “facts” which may not require explanation — such as the beauty of a morning dawn pink with a quietude of poetry, where words fail to embrace the peaceful mood within the serenity of nature; but such facts do not reflect the chaos of the paperwork being received by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and very few there care about the pink dawn of nature, but want an explanation as to why the Federal or Postal employee is entitled to Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire