Federal Disability Retirement: Life is Never Perfect

Is that a rather mundane truism?  Yet, we project upon other lives and assume that “perfection” has been attained by those other than our own; but is the proportionality reflected by the unhappiness we experience within the context of specific problems?

Thus do we rationalize:  If we have financial problems, we believe that anyone who is wealthy lives a life of perfection; if one of loneliness, of public figures who appear to be happily betrothed; if disjointedness with one’s career, then of fantasies of successful businessmen, CEOs and other mega-billionaires; and if of physical incapacity, of Curry or LeBron, projected as teammates, or at the very least, soulmates of a kindred kind.

But of those projected fantasies of lives unknown — are their lives of perfection granted?

That was, of course, the argument against Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the existence of God — that we extrapolate from reality and cull together the concept of “perfection”, when in reality it is merely a fiction, a chimera, a theoretical construct from our fantasies and dreams.  In the end, we all know that there is never a perfect life — only lives which, in their totality of a considered life, may approach a semblance of a life lived well.

But even a life lived well is subject to the lottery of mishaps — for, consider health, the deterioration of it, and that which we take for granted; and for the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from deteriorating health, perfection is beyond the reach and grasp of any fantasy; and instead, the best thing that can be hoped for is to prepare, formulate and file an effective FERS Disability Retirement claim through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

In filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, perfection is never the goal; rather, it is the acceptance of an imperfect life but one better served by being able to focus upon one’s health, for a hopeful tomorrow.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and leave the concept of a “Perfect Life” to the fantasies yet unresolved, and instead, focus upon the reality of your life today, where a recognition can be embraced that no life is ever perfect, but can be better by obtaining an OPM Medical Retirement.

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: The Black & White Film

What is it about the old films which retain their attractiveness?  Certainly, Hitchcock made optimal use of the genre — of shadows and dark corners; of shades and gray areas, contrasting good and evil.  And things didn’t stand out as much.  It reflected a time of greater modesty where individuals didn’t stand out — for, everyone and everything being grey and indistinguishable from one another, it rejected the colorful phenomena of individualism.

“High Noon” reflected that sense of modesty; for, while the star and main character prevailed in the end, Gary Cooper was an unassuming individual without great physical presence nor any outward characteristics which manifested anything extraordinary; however, his inner character is what was in full display.  As a film in Black & White, only the character within began to reveal itself as the film progressed — of stubborn integrity; of a sense of duty; of an obligation both to himself and to a greater sense of justice.

By contrast, if a remake of the film were ever to be attempted, this would be included in “High Noon — the Remake”: A muscular main character, with ripped shirt displaying cuts and abrasions; a couple (at least) of “bed scenes”; probably a look back at the main character’s childhood to provide some psychological trauma to engender sympathy; and in the end, the rationale for staying was because the town was willing to pay him a cash bonus — not because of any sense of duty or obligation.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS retirement system, “High Noon” is the metaphor for the state that you currently find yourself in:  Of having to face down your agency; of holding your Agency off until you have had the chance to prepare, formulate and file for your Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

And it would indeed be nice if it were still a film in Black & White, where no one notices that you can’t do all of the essential elements of your job, anymore, because you remain indistinguishable from everyone else.  But, alas we are now in the world of color, and because of that, you may want to contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, where the Black & White Film is no longer available except in those special editions of the Criterion Collection.

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: The Fabrication of Certainty

There are innumerable truths of certainty, mostly of fabrication and artificiality, and much of it meaningless and of inconsequential inanity.

For example, you can join a local chapter of the Flat-Earth Society, and so long as you contain your discussions about the flatness of the earth within the confines of the society’s reaches (however limited that may be), your conviction that the earth is flat can be maintained, reserved, and with vigorous belief, sustained.  You can even go out into the greater world and retain such a conviction, and believe it with certainty.

On the other hand, it would be unwise to entertain certain types of fabricated certainties — such as the belief that you are a super-human being who will incur no harm if you run in front of a bus traveling at 50 miles per hour — leaving aside even a lesser speed.  The test as against the objective world and the rules of force and biology simply will not cooperate or comply with such fabrication of certainty.

Human beings have an unlimited capacity to create and manufacture fabrications of certainty, even if they have absolutely no correspondence or connection to the outside world.  You can even believe, with absolute certainty, Russell’s statement that the “King of France is bald”, and as there is no King in France, and thus the individual without a referential-point in the universe cannot be bald (because a non-existent person cannot possess the characteristic of “baldness”) — and yet, because the “sense” and “meaning” of the statement can be comprehended, we can walk about the world with the fabrication of certainty without any consequences in the real world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition compels and necessitates the proper and effective preparation, formulating and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the recognition that fabrications of certainties can defeat a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS is important.

Always be clear on the certainty of “the law”; review the medical records and reports for any inaccuracies which may defeat your disability retirement application; and make sure that there is a correspondence between your Statement of Disability on SF 3112A and on the medical documents to be submitted.

For, in the end, the fabrication of certainty is fine only so long as the insularity of one’s world doesn’t extend beyond the tip of one’s growing nose.  And one more thing: For all Flat-Earth Society members, it is not recommended that you travel too far on a ship, lest you fall off of the edge of the earth.

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 Application: Appropriateness

Wives insist upon it; youth ignore it; the old display it without thought because that is the way they were brought up.

Often, people don’t even know that there is such a thing as “appropriateness”, thinking in this age of modernity that anything and everything is acceptable.  It used to be that foul language was appropriate only in bars and Sunday get-togethers for football games; nowadays, we think its cute when a toddler emits long dissertations of 4-letter words like a dog vomiting following a feast of eating leftover scraps from the garbage bin.

If you say to your spouse, “I put the scissors away,” the appropriate response to expect might be, “Thank you”, or even, “Where?”  But as spouses always confound, instead, the question might be, “When did you put it away?”  Now, the excitement of marriage is that one’s spouse should always keep you on your toes, and the inappropriateness of the question is only a reflection of that, so long as the context is misunderstood.  For, the question, “When did you put it away” is a puzzling one, and mystery is the foundation of excitement when it comes to a marriage.

However, if you query back with: “Why did you ask that, as opposed to the appropriate counter-question, ‘Where did you put it away?’”  And the answer back: “Because I looked for it an hour ago and it wasn’t there.”  Context is important in appropriateness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS must be filed by necessity through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, appropriateness is a factor which always must be considered — the appropriate tone to convey; the appropriate case-laws to cite; the appropriate arguments to make, etc.  For, the cousin of appropriateness is “effectiveness”, and that is the goal to focus upon, unlike the spouse who asks the mysterious question of “when” as opposed to “where”.

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 Law: This Unforgiving Time

The desolation of winter; the “deadness” of all that surrounds us — of trees without leaves, of limited sunlight; the shortened days, the biting cold (unless, of course, you live in Florida); January and February constitute the unforgiving time when nature’s toll requires animals to live with limited resources, or perish.

In the Human Kingdom, the political divisions, the economic divide — the lack of civil communication and inability to consider the other’s viewpoint — magnifies this unforgiving time in which we live.  Then, in the midst of it all, when a medical condition hits us, every negative perspective becomes exacerbated, becomes exponentially magnified, especially during the panic-stricken duration of Covid and the fear we all must face.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that consideration must be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, this unforgiving time may require the forgiveness of work by filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider that this unforgiving time may be overcome by looking at the future — brighter, warmer, and perhaps even more rational, by being able to focus upon one’s health through obtaining an annuity under Federal Disability Retirement, and not having to worry about whether or not you might get fired because of your lack of ability to continue on in your Federal or Postal career.

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 Help: The Fairytale Life

Every now and again, we hear about someone like that — how he or she “lived a fairytale life”.  That is, of course, until the details and private murmurings have been thoroughly vetted.  A good rule to follow is: If you like a certain artist, musician, writer, actor, etc., and you hold some moral qualms about right and wrong, don’t research too much into the details of that favorite person, for the chances are, you will likely be disappointed.

The Fairytale life is the public appearance; for, in the end, such a depiction is merely the “tale” as noted in the title, and tales are fictional accounts as opposed to a biography or an investigative report.

To a greater extent, we all have such tales — of the pubic persona and the One-dimensional aspect of our lives.  Some things, we hide deliberately.  Other things, we have forgotten about, put behind us, or merely fail to mention because of lack of context, embarrassment or shame.  Other things — like a chronic and increasingly debilitating medical condition — we hide and push through in order to keep our jobs.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition but appear to others to live “the fairytale life”, there may come a point when the privacy of your medical conditions clashes with the public persona of your Federal job.  At that juncture of contradiction, you may have to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, and at that point, you may want to contact an experienced OPM Disability Lawyer 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.

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Control Over

There are certain things we have control over; others, merely a spattering of influence; and still others, none at all.

It is often a dictum of life that “happiness” is the capacity to recognize those very categories over which we have control, and those where we have absolutely no control over.  Why?  Because frustration erupts or otherwise builds up around our attempt to maintain control over that which we have absolutely no control over.

Babies and toddlers, we have quite a bit of control over; teenagers, merely some exerted influence; but of adult children who wish to go their own way and ignore the experience of past generations — we have absolutely no control over.  We have limited control over the car we drive — but no control over idiot-other-drivers who also occupy the roads.  We have absolutely no control over the paradigmatic metaphor of sitting atop a mountain and watching two trains below heading at a high rate of speed towards one another on the same railroad track — and it is here that one’s frustration can overwhelm us.

Medical conditions, likewise, are something which we have no control over.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management because of a medical condition — well, that is something we have some control over, and it is often helpful to hire an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to exert some greater control over a bureaucratic process which may at first light appear arbitrary, capricious and without any logical sense.

Now, that is the very definition of frustration — of a process which you have no control over, and that is the reason why you should contact a lawyer who specializes in the process of Federal Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Medical Retirement Benefits for Federal & Postal Workers: Expectations versus Reality

The dawn of the American century arrived sometime after the First World War.  America’s entrance into the world stage; its dominance in influencing culture, economics, politics and social upheavals cannot be ignored.  At home, too, kids were brought up with a view that expectations were limitless; that everyone could achieve anything and everything so long as you put your heart, mind and soul into it.

The reality, of course, is quite different.  For, the fantasy of expectations fails to take into account individual limitations, whether in the arena of creativity, intelligence, circumstances or just plain luck.

We taught our kids the false pablum that in America, everything is possible for everyone, and thus do we have the reality-check upon millennials and others that, NO, not everything is possible, and sometimes you have to accept the plain fact that reality imposes a check upon your expectations: You cannot win at everything; you cannot succeed at every crazy venture; you are not always going to come in first; and, in fact, you may not even be given a pat on the back just because you show up.

Medical conditions, likewise, provide a reality check.  We are not all of us triathletes; our bodies are, indeed, vulnerable; and though we may think we are a species which can multitask better than other specialized animals (i.e., the predator cats are good at chasing and killing; the falcon at zeroing in upon its prey, etc. — but the human animal, though not the best at any one thing, is good enough at a multitude of different tasks), there is a limit as to how much we can do before the stress and anxiety of becoming overwhelmed sets in.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition has given you the reality check against expectations of continued employment with your Federal Agency or the Postal Service, contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of initiating the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application — where you are finally recognizing that there is a substantive distinction to be made between expectations and reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer
OPM Medical Disability Retirement Attorney

Medical Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Isolation

It is a state which many declare to be desired; but, in reality, human beings are social and political animals (the latter term applied in an Aristotelian sense), and a true state of it becomes an insular havoc of desperate insanity.

Isolation is used in penal institutions as a means of punishment.  Whether it has a rehabilitative effect is questionable, but the policy is generally to impart upon the prisoner a stripping and depriving of a needed human experience — that of contact with others — and by punishing the individual, to allegedly “motivate” the offending party into behaving in an orderly manner in the future.  However, human beings possess great forces of creativity.  Stories from the Guantanamo facilities reveal a wide range of ingenuities in communication methods employed when “solitary confinement” is imposed upon multiple individuals.

In the end, the policy of isolation is often ineffective, and merely serves as an extreme measure of punishment which motivates not the human appetitive sense of behavioral modification, but cuts deeply into a profound sense of resentment and hatred.

In the general population, we have come to fool ourselves into believing that a blinking screen can replace actual human contact.  The worldwide pandemic has revealed the fissures of such thinking, and has tested the extremes of isolation.

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 under FERS, the sense of isolation can be felt from not being able to engage in the multiple essential elements of the position — of participating in conferences; of engaging with other coworkers; of missing time from work because of doctor’s appointments, etc.

Further, actual isolation is often exaggerated in the mind, where the mental isolation becomes disproportionately viewed and exponentially harmful to a person’s self-image.

Contact a retirement attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider the option of filing a FERS Disability Retirement application.  As isolation is the harbinger of a future yet uncertain, FERS Disability Retirement may be the ray of hope which opens the jailhouse door to a mind which is willing to be motivated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Top-Rated Federal Disability Lawyer: Legal Containment

We have all seen it, or even experienced it first-hand.  A party; a gathering; a group of kids; a bunch of young boys and girls; the noise, the “showing off” and the language too obscene for nascent ears; then, an adult appears and, suddenly, miraculously and without anyone saying a word, the entire character of the crowd changes.

Boys sit up straight, feel around their waists to tuck their shirts in; girls make sure that they are a decent distance from the guy they were just a moment ago sprawled all over; the language is suddenly cleaned up, with serious tones of “yes, sir” and “no, sir” and formal designations prefatory in quiet demeanors; and so the party ends.

What happened?  What changed the character of the gathering?  Why did the mere approach and presence of an adult radically alter the character of the gathering?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates a filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Offie of Personnel Management, the lesson above should be a warning: OPM will often act like the unruly bunch of kids when a Federal Disability Retirement application is filed without legal representation.

Legal containment — a reserved, appropriate and serious response — occurs when the law hovers over the behavior of OPM.

Contact a FERS Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and make sure that the teenage gathering — OPM — is made to sit up straight and behave within the legal confines of the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer