Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The measurable advantage

How does one quantify a concept? It is where the clash of the hypothetical meets the practical, and the worlds collide in silent discourse of battling combat, no less real than armies charging at one another in abandonment of fear, safety or self-preservation. There are advance scouts that test the strength and durability of enemy lines; of tactical maneuvers to outflank and deceive; and even of repeatedly dying for the hill where no strategic purpose is recognized save the pride of the tattered flag that stands last as the reverberating echoes of garbled yells that reflect the platoon’s pride. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The protective comfort of fatalism

There is some comfort in a perspective that is resigned to pre-determinism; for, if nothing can be changed, whatever we do in life is what would have happened anyway, and there is no changing it no matter how much we may try. Fate is thus out of our hands; destiny is designed by forces unknown or beyond our comprehension; and the future cannot be influenced by our petty deeds or attempts to deviate. Taken to the extreme, we are who we are and what we do, how we think and where we end up is purely a matter of fate. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: “Well, at least…”

Admittedly, any substantive insight into such a conceptual proverb used in everyday life is attributable to the eloquent thoughts of Yiyun Li, in her recently published collection of essays. Such insights are so deliciously stated, with linguistic content so deftly conveyed, that the undersigned cannot refrain from grasping, grappling and attempting to add onto that which cannot be improved upon. Well, at least plagiarism is no longer anything more than a forgivable sin, and not even a venial one at that. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Turning back the clock

How many of us would want that opportunity, and more importantly, for what reasons?  Is it to correct the remorse of thoughtless acts perpetrated in another stage of life, when youth or desperation compelled motives and intentions otherwise relegated as an anomaly but for the justification of necessity by situational relativity? […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The immovable individual

Aristotle’s unmoved mover is an interesting conceptual posit:  it is based upon the cohesive compromise between the Pre-Socratics as paradigmatic examples encapsulated by Parmenides and Heraclitus – of the universe as seen in a singular “oneness” as opposed to embroiled in constant flux and change.  The unmoved mover consolidates into a synergistic compromise the pendulum between the two extremes:  […] Read More …

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, […] Read More …