fers interim disability payments

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Expunging the negative

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If all negative words were expunged from the universe, would we hold only positive thoughts?  Or, is there an inherent, innate need to recognize and state the negative, regardless?  If you are sitting in your office and a lion walks in, pounces upon your least-favorite supervisor and devours him whole, do you turn to your colleague and calmly say, “He lived a very good life.”  For, in such a universe, expunging the negative has been already accomplished, and such statements as, “Oh, what a horrible thing to have happened!” is no longer allowable, and the law has forbidden such discourse of linguistic negativity.  Is it possible? […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The elixir of life

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Is the substance we expunge necessarily the opposite of the positive?  Does the mere fact of expiation denote that which is unwanted, or merely no longer of utility?  In ancient times, an elixir was considered to be a substance of great desirability; it possessed multiple meanings, including a reference to that substance which was used in alchemy to alter base-metals into the gleaming riches of the natural order found deep beneath the chasms of the earth – gold. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement Law: The voice of constructive criticism

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It is rare for the individual to accept constructive criticism; rarer still, to invite and welcome it in any form, whether destructive, constructive or otherwise characterized as “positive”, “negative” or “neutral”.  The fact is that few of us accept any form of it at all, and quickly respond with the rebuttal:  “It’s not constructive”.  But why does it need to be? […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The intransigent excuse

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Much of life is spent in retrospectively justifying actions; the remainder of the time, of making excuses where we can, and when we need to (which is often).  The great thing about excuses is that the reserve of them can never be depleted; like the never-exhaustive stars in the universe, we can always discover, make up, or otherwise concoct another.  Thus, to counter that a person has “run out of excuses” is to defy reality; we can always, if the need requires, go back to one that we long ago abandoned, and stick to it. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: What to do

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Does anyone really know what to do? From the very beginning, we are brought into this world without having been asked, and never with any instructions entitled, “Life instructions in ‘how to’”. Instead, we are thrown into the ravages of this impervious universe. We are lucky if we have some kind parents; otherwise, as with most of us, they are as clueless as we are, and sometimes even more so. What do we do with the rest of our lives? How do we determine if the course we have chosen is worthwhile? When do we determine if the choices presented are the ones that will forever be offered, […] Read More …

U.S. Government Employees Disability Retirement: Failing to meet those goals

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Goals define an aspect of humanity that differentiates from the beast; just look at nature and the existential encounter with the “now” at all times. Animals besides Man look at the world around and respond appropriately and accordingly. For them, the future is the now; the past is merely a basis upon which to react in this moment of time; and what the appetitive parts of the soul require, the predator attempts to satisfy. Goals, on the other hand, project into the future. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Expectations beyond the norm

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We begin the nascent origins of remembrances expecting greater things beyond the normal levels of reality; that is what we now define as a “good childhood” as opposed to a lesser, or even an ordinary one to bear and be burdened with.  We are admonished that we can “be anything”; that potentiality and possibility (is there even any conceptual clarity of distinction between the two, anymore, and what of the third in its trifecta – of probability?) are limitless; […] Read More …

OPM Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Character

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If a person points to another and states, “He is really a character”, is it different from positing: “He really has character”? Can both statements mean the same, or is the subtle difference there to denote? The former is customarily stated in defining a person as somewhat of an oddball, or perhaps eccentric to a degree that places him outside of the conventional norms of acceptable conduct. The latter, on the other hand, could also mean that – the possession of it modified by the adverb describes one with a plenitude of extraordinary traits. Or, it could connote the more classical meaning: A worthy person of honor, dignity, courage, moral foundation, etc. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Law: The cruelty of our nature

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Note that we are not positing that nature in general is cruel; for, in nature, predatory behaviors and devouring of one another is merely a tautological definition of nature itself, in the constant balance between prey and predator, betwixt overpopulation and dominance of one species over another, etc.  No, the “our” refers to a specific species – of the human kind. […] Read More …