OPM Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: That uncluttered mind

How do we remain so in this world of cacophonous and discordant barrage of sounds, images and the overload of information?  Is it even possible to remain as the quietude of mind within the meditative spirit of a Zen monk reflecting upon the pool of uncertainty yet contemplating the serenity of a mind’s eye?  The cluttering is deafening; and, with it, the anxiety, stresses and paralyzing fears that accompany the world writ so large and looming so fearsome.  The uncluttered mind is the one that, with singular focus, yet accomplishes goals in life, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The reef beneath the lagoon’s surface

In every worthwhile venture, there is the inherent danger of failure, and more often, of encounters with obstacles while enduring the process.  Some are apparent; others, hidden like the reef beneath the lagoon’s surface, of the jagged formations from sediments deposited and coagulated through time and shifting tectonics of unseen tidal forces.  That is the greatest of dangers […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Service: Life’s burdens

In chaos, where does one find refuge? One suspects that for children of modernity, the escape into the virtual world of computer games, Internet conversations, constant checking and updating of profiles, and the entire gambit of projects unrelated to the reality surrounding, is that very reservation of constancy which is needed by all. Life has burdens; parents have an obligation and duty to contain and protect throughout those crucial periods of growth; but what happens when parents have never known the stability of life’s promise and become parents even before being ready themselves? […] Read More …

FERS Disability Retirement: Private hells

It is a familiar refrain to note that everyone has a self-contained “private hell”; and an even greater understanding that it is well that such thoughts of other hells are both private, and for the most part, left silent without conveyance or communication. But that is changing, in large part, because people believe that mass dissemination of information has now unleashed any unspoken decorum of dignified discretion. We believe, now, that everyone should “tell all”; that private matters once left as remnants of shameful self-confessions should be publicized because it is healthy for the inner soul to be uncovered. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Of empty promises

What is a promise? Is it binding, and if so, what makes it binding? Does a written acknowledgment, a memorandum of understand or a memorialization of promises made and assurances conveyed, make a bit of difference? Why are “eternal” promises so much easier to violate – is it because, as finite human beings, “everyone knows” anyway that we never meant to keep such stipulations made before gods, angels and other sanctified entities? What about empty promises – those that we know are suspect to begin with, but in a drunken state of euphoria, […] Read More …