FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Of human frailty

Youth is the folly that disbelieves; middle age, of a progressive realization that the past does not lie, but teaches us of existent graveyards we may have passed unnoticed just yesterday, with question suddenly more prominent about mortality, the afterlife, and whether it is possible to cheat illness, death or debilitation from its awaiting wages.  Do we call out to the gods in a moment of desperation, ready to make a Faustus-like contract, or buy into the cosmetic youth-movement with lotions, fitness regimens and, in the end, surgical alterations to cheat the fates of time?  Of human frailty, there is no avoidance.

We can demand damage-control and engage in the peripheral tinkering where the god’s of malevolent intent care not because of the harmlessly futile attempts we employ; and, in the end, nothing subverts but merely detracts, and only extends just beyond the embrace of our own egoism so long as we avoid the hanging mirror in the privacy of bathrooms unlit.

What cosmetic and artificial superstitions we initiate matters little; for human frailty is part of the joke that the mirth of mythological gods make game of, with mocking repose during lighthearted times of boredom refracted.  Frailty steals the clothes that hide, leaving naked the humanness of what we are, unearthed to reflect the very soil from whence we came and to which we return.

Medical conditions unravel the façade we create and surround ourselves, hiding the little we don’t already reveal, like Adam in those Medieval depictions with a leaf leaving the imagination to view beyond the superficial coverings of our own lives.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from such medical conditions, such that they prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the positional duties slotted, the reality of human frailty comes to the forefront.

For, ultimately, the purpose in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is twofold:  A recognition, acknowledgment and admission that the time has come to attend to priorities in life otherwise disregarded for too long; and an understanding that the history of human frailty does not merely depict and describe in dusty old books forgotten in the arcane halls of crumbling libraries, but lives on beyond the artificial facades of cosmopolitan egos that dwell beneath where the gods of fate, time and reincarnated echoes of forgotten graveyards remind with a cold whisper of tomorrow’s past.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Moving on

That is what people want to do, and in the aggregate, the world around.  In engagements with others, there is a limited and quantifiable extent of patience.  It is tantamount to that ‘arc of flight’ that every animal possesses – as long as you remain outside of that safe-zone, you will be a suspicious entity perceived by watchful caution; once you enter and breach the invisible periphery of an unseen arena, you become more than that and declare yourself a danger, a predator and a spoiler of tacit agreements.

Similarly, that interest shown in conveyed concerns – of domestic problems; complaints about personal issues; workplace conflicts that exacerbate common tolerance of stresses experienced; of medical conditions, procedures and impact upon physical and cognitive capacities – may last but a day, a week, a month, or even a year; but then, empathy intersects with everyday life forces, and patience wanes in proportion to an unstated ‘arc of human callousness’, and the justifications begin to echo forth:  “He’s a nice guy, but…”; “I’ve never met someone who has so many problems…”; “Boy, how long is she going to go on complaining?”

We give lip service to the problems of others; we try and maintain that eyebrow of concern, that look of interest and that grim frown of sympathetic pose; but, in the end, people want to move on.

Words allow for linguistic comprehension; spoken communication may touch upon emotional neurotransmitters that convey and enhance the angel in human beings, but there is a limit to the capacity of feeling what a person experiences in the shoes of that proverbial “other”, but in reality, we always remain in our own shoes, constrained within the self-contained egoism of cocoon-like lives, and “moving on” is both the engine of human progress and the regressive malfeasance of an uncaring lot.

In the end, we are left to our own devices.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application becomes a necessity, the empirical experience of others “moving on” will become a familiar refrain, and one that cannot be avoided.

You are no longer part of that mythical “team”; no longer the golden boy or girl who won those accolades translated into merit pay and promotions; and because of the chronic pain, the loss of mental acuity and cognitive decline from the progressively deteriorating, chronic medical condition, the need to prepare, formulate and file a Federal Disability Retirement application becomes that indicator that not only may others be ready to move on – but, more importantly, you are ready to move on.  And the entities that “move on” go about in different directions, and such disengagement and extrication is a natural phenomena resulting from a most unnatural condition of human frailty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The compromised life

We all make them, though we deny it.  Iconoclasts scorn it; the extremes of either side scoff at it; and, in the end, it reflects the reality of who we are, how we live, and by what vaunted principles we purportedly possess.

On a theoretical level, it is easy to remain the stalwart – that singular entity standing on principle and commitment.  The one who has never experienced war – to express beliefs of “courage”, “unwavering loyalty” and blind bravery declared in wrappings of the flag and national identity.  Or of fidelity and traditional values despite personal shortcomings of multiple marital infidelities and 3 or 4 marriages, with the devastation of a trail of longing children with a hole in each heart, wishing that principles could be exchanged for a single memory of playing catch on a summer’s day.

If you are sequestered whether by wealth or capacity to ignore, it is easy to shout out principles; but, then, when the test of life intrudes, the failings of reality reconstitute an extraordinary hypothetical into a quivering crumbling of an ordinary person.

Ordinariness is certainly rarely looked upon as the paradigm to follow, and the argument often goes:  You never want to dumb down deviancy (Moynihan’s famous phrase extrapolated from a generation or two ago, lost forever by events of social and cultural turmoil hence), and so, even if no one actually lives like the pinnacle of beautiful thoughts and voices stated by writers, essayists and politicians (who themselves bifurcate “personal conduct” from the espoused rhetoric emitted from hollow mouths with a dead-panned look of seriousness), the common masses are admonished by rebukes of being responsible for the “cultural rot” that dissipates throughout.

Reality has a way of compromising the apex of beautiful words, paragraphs, pages and entire narratives of a singular life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may be preventing the Federal or Postal worker from being able to perform all of the essential elements of the position occupied, the concept of a compromised life is now a reality.  For, the sequential perspective of what is expected – of continuing until retirement age a career fulfilled, with regular promotions and deserved merit pay – may need to be ‘adjusted’ in accordance with the reality of life’s impositions.

Having a compromised life and accepting the compromises of life’s misgivings is not a sin, nor a diminution of one’s principled belief-system; instead, in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is merely a recognition that theoretical foundations were always meant to be modified, and those speechifying vanguards of social commentators never meant the fulfillment of their own words, anyway, and it was always the compromised life that reflected the reality of the boorish insistence that we were angels and gods unknown.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire