OPM Federal Disability Retirement: Not Unhappy

There is the state of “being happy”; conversely, of “being unhappy”; but what of the neutral sense?  Can you be in a state of “being not unhappy” and, if so, what could it mean?  Is it a neutral mood — sort of like an emotional purgatory where you are neither happy nor unhappy, but of a state of measured deliberation, where most of us are throughout the greater slice of our lives?

Modernity demands the first; to experience episodes of the second state of emotional constitution is to somehow have something “wrong” going on; for, the cottage industry of “be happy” is devised to manipulate and commercialize a state of natural being which has been artificially characterized as a “negative”, and given the greater multitude of herd instincts and the inculcated belief that there is something wrong if you are either “not happy” or “unhappy”, it goes without saying that any “neutral” state of being is likewise unacceptable.

Yet, most of life is of a state of medium; and the archaic, arcane Western Tradition of the Aristotelian “middle way” — where neither extremes of emotions are the preferred stage, but rather, a governance of the appetitive nature by the intellect and reason constitute the near-perfect character — has long been abandoned, and now deemed unattractive.  But reality, in the end, has a way of creeping back into our lives, and the state of being “not unhappy” is where most of us remain, cottage industries of “being happy” notwithstanding.

For Federal and Postal employees who are unhappy, and wish to get back to the purgatory of humanity by being not unhappy because of a medical condition which impedes and interferes with his or her life, both professionally and personally, it may be necessary to consider filing for Federal Employee Disability benefits under the current Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Neither chronic happiness nor persistent unhappiness are the natural states of Man; rather, the goal is to reach that purgatory of emotions — of being not unhappy — and it may be that, to reach that state of being, Federal Disability Retirement is an option to consider.

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.

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Altering Events

There are critical junctures in everyday lives that alter the course of our plans, daydreams, expectations and choices.  Most are mundane and go on unnoticed; others, more significant and captivating; and those few, of memorable relevance which necessitate a wholesale upheaval and changing of the metaphorical furniture in one’s life.

Altering events are those new circumstances which change one’s perspective, outlook, attitude and priorities.  Medical conditions are normally included in that definition of altering events.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition has come to a critical juncture of an altering event, contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

For, in the end, all altering events become altering by the decision made by the altered individual, and not by the event alone.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Unexpected

It can be exciting, yet disconcerting; a pleasant surprise, but moreover an unwelcome event; and perhaps even a pleasurable moment but with an uncomfortable edge.

We live by routines but thrive through tumults.  The “unexpected” is what jolts us out of the doldrums of daily repetitiveness, and is sometimes that which is needed in order to bring us out of the complacency of comfort and monotony.  Some thrive on it so much that they seek the adrenaline that accompanies, and attempt to make it as the mainstay of life — like the high of addicts which is constantly needed in greater doses in order to return to the baseline of euphoric feeling itself.

Some forms of the unexpected are unwanted; others, tolerable and endurable; and still others, perhaps gleefully embraced with open arms.  Much of the unexpected, or course, was fully expected; it is just that procrastination and disregard allowed it to remain out of our consciousness for a time such that, when the unexpected finally arrived, we forgot that it was to be expected but wanted it not to be so.

Isn’t old age expected?  Aren’t the chances of an automobile accident to be expected if you commute 100+ miles every day?  And aren’t medical conditions to be expected over a lifetime of stressful living?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who encounter the unexpected — a medical condition — which begins to impact you in an unexpected way — of preventing you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job — it may be time to consider the unexpected: Of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the unexpected bureaucratic complexities involved in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM should further complicate the unexpected, and so that the unexpected can be exposed to reveal the greater expectations of a future yet unexpected.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Losses

How many losses must one accumulate before being deemed a “loser”?

Was it just yesterday that Cal Ripken, Jr. won with the Baltimore Orioles in 1983, after a mere couple of years in the minors, but with that World Series ring on his finger, would then see decades of losses mount as a result of poor decisions in trading players, acquiring “has beens” and being in the unfortunate AL East where the Yankees and the Red Sox seem always to vie for the top tier of the elect?

Can a team win a World Series one year, then go on for thirty-plus years without ever winning one again, and yet be deemed “a winner”?  Or, can one always pause, give a grin, and say, “Yeah, but we were winners in 1983!”

Does one win wipe out an avalanche of losses such that the singularity of glory negates the overwhelming statistical significance of unending disappointments?  Or, what of the person who once had a promising career, but through a series of unfortunate circumstances considered by most to be no fault of his or her own, cannot quite achieve that level of promises dreamed of but never materialized?

Do we, in our own minds, create conditions which are impossible to attain, and then deem those unreachable goals as “losses” despite the artificial nature of the criteria imposed?  Do losses mount and exponentially aggregate because failure seeks after failure, and somehow the subsequent one is a natural consequence, inevitably by inherent nature, of the previous one?

Does bad luck come in bunches because of some Law of Nature, or is it just in our imagination that it seems so?  Are much of losses artificially created — i.e., we set the proverbial “goal post” in our own minds, then miss the metaphorical field goal and become despondent over the “loss” created within our own imagination within contextual circumstances fantasized that have no connection to objective reality?

For Federal and 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, that sense of “loss” can be an admixture of both objective reality and subjective, artificial creations.

The medical condition itself is an “objective” loss; but the Agency or the Postal Service’s efforts to compound the adversarial circumstances can be created in an ad hoc manner, where there are no rules or criteria to follow except upon the whim of the supervisor or the department’s reactionary intuition.  The interruption to one’s career; the constant struggle with a chronic medical condition; of being forced to deal with deteriorating health — these are all real “losses”.

On the other hand, adversarial initiations by one’s Federal Agency or the Postal Service — these, too, are “real” losses, though artificially created and unnecessary, in many instances.

Both must be dealt with when preparing, formulating and filing a 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 — but the fact that one must “deal with” so many “losses” does not, in the end, make one a loser.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Perfection

Can it ever be achieved?  Is our possession of it proof, as Anselm’s Ontological Argument asserts, of the existence of that which we ourselves cannot ever attain?

Perfection as a “goal” is considered “unrealistic”; as a paradigm against which we compare in order to impose a standard or paradigm of success, we often accept as a given; and, with the exception of stereotypical “Tiger Moms” and other unreasonably demanding categories of nightmarish figures unable to ever please or gratify, perfection is merely an unattainable hollow easily moveable within a spectrum of endless sights much like the proverbial movement of goal posts so-named when nearing the end.

Yet, we constantly strive for it, despite the knowledge that it is unachievable and unrealistic, declaring that the nearer we reach towards the boundaries of perfection, the closer we become as gods of lesser heavens.

The Ancients regarded certain physical characteristics as those “perfect” dimensions based upon proportionality of appearance; in modernity, we have dispensed with any such paradigms and instead have elevated acceptance and tolerance as the greater good, thereby negating hurt feelings, unattainable heights and unreachable expectations.

Perfection, as applied to a specific category such as “health”, can yet nevertheless remain relative in terms of acceptability.  Perfect health can never be maintained forever; relatively good health can be sustained for a time; and poor health, once experienced, is like a bad dream that one wishes to be awakened from, lest it turn into a nightmare that never ends.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a deteriorating, progressively chronic condition of a medical nature — one that is likely to last for a minimum of 12 months in preventing or otherwise impacting one’s ability and 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 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.

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement is not an admission that perfection is an unattainable goal (although we know it is); rather, that merely a particular job or career is not the “right fit” — and in the end, that is the greater perfection of all: To recognize one’s limitations, properly evaluate and assess one’s circumstances, and adjust and modify in accordance thereof.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Other Side of Work

The entanglement of work with value and worth is an inescapable aggregate of custom, upbringing, time spent, and the egoism of leaving some indelible mark upon an otherwise implacable universe.  Where work resulted in income, and income the cumulative wealth of a lifetime, the driving force behind it never mandated the fury of necessity.  Of course work has always been tied to livelihood; that is a given.  But when the doors for credit, mortgages exponentially exceeding an imbalance beyond capacity to repay, and the idea became accepted that luxury need not be left for tomorrow, the slavery of bonding work to worth became an unworthy concept.

Then, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the fear and trembling for future needs begins to encroach.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition is having an effect upon one’s performance of work, the reality of potential alternatives must be faced, and quite quickly, lest the other side of work, like this side of paradise, leaves one with neither work nor income, but a bleak future without either.

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will take time to develop, submit, and wait upon in order to receive a decision from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It is a complex bureaucratic process with multiple administrative facets.  The reality of needing to file, however, should never be confused with the bundled confusion one has concerning worth, work, and the value of one’s contribution to society.  It is the medical condition itself, and attending to the symptoms and effects of that which one never expected, asked for, nor desired, that must be focused upon .

Some things in life are, indeed, worth of greater value than work, and the value placed upon the other side of work will determine the course of one’s future, whether of joy and love, or of further puzzlement beyond the imprint of time spent without one’s family.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Pretending

It is the creative imagination which ultimately separates man from his counterpart; and, in the end, those costumes we display, and wear as vestiges of who we were, what we have become, and how we want others to appreciate us — in the aggregate, they reveal either our pretending selves, or at the very least, our pretentiousness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the extension from childhood through adulthood is best personified in the ability and capacity to “pretend” — assume the role of the loyal civil servant; march on in quiet suffering; brave through in silent grief the turmoil of a progressively worsening medical condition.  But when “pretend” encounters the reality of pain and self-immolation of destruction and deterioration, there comes a point in time where childhood fantasies and dreams of want and desire must be replaced with the reality of what “is”.

That annoying verb, “to be”, keeps cropping up as an obstacle of reality, forever obstructing and denying.  Reality sometimes must hit us over the head with harsh tools of sudden awakenings; for the Federal or Postal worker who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the wake-up call is often the alarm-clock that rings after a long weekend, when rest and respite should have restored one to healthy readiness on the workday following, but where somehow the face of pretending must still remain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire