Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Being too kind

Can we be so?  Is there a tipping point on the pendulum of sugary personalities where the spectrum of color-coded warnings tell us to be wary, for danger lurking within a context where one becomes suspicious of a conversation turning to an overabundance of kindness?  Is there such an event, a personality, a characteristic and a trait of opposition as “being too kind”?  On a spectrum or scale of revealing who or what a person is – does kindness turn about into an antonym of sorts, and become naked meanness or obstructive disregard in malfeasance by neglectful ignorance? […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Other people’s misery

Why is it that the misery of others tends to soothe our own? Yes, yes – we grant the common and appropriate responses of heartfelt empathy and facial frowns and perhaps even some tears; but in the end, is it because of the resulting comparative analysis – of a cold, rational and logical methodology of responsive behavior – that we appease the gods of fate in some primitive form of sacrificing others, knowing that so long as the traveling karma has not yet noticed our own plight of devious accord, we are safe for another day? […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Potentiality extinguished

Aristotle addresses the concept well; of the inherent nature of being not defined merely by the state of current existence, but encompassing the finite potentiality of what it is yet to be, as well as being based upon the historical lineage of origination. Only within the context of that truism can children be treated as more than mere commodities of sweatshop workers, as in the days of Dickens and the Industrial Age empowered by the need for cheap labor; and on the other side of the spectrum, the old and infirm whose contribution to society has reached its apex of productivity, and is slowly receding into the sunset of former days filled with youth and vigor. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Affirmation, Affiliation and Affectation

But for the middle syllable (the extra “ta” in the word), it is what people strive for; and like the thief in the night who leaves behind earthen footprints of his twilight misdeeds, the insertion of that additional combination of a consonant and vowel turns the meaning of the word upon its head, and leaves us with an artificial prose devoid of poetry and warmth. The middle term is a favorite of sociologists and other “soft” sciences where anthropological studies […] Read More …

Resigning from a Federal Position Due to a Medical Condition

To resign is often considered the last vestiges of giving up hope; somehow, it contradicts our DNA, and the resistance to it reinforces the Darwinian idea that the evolutionary drive for survival rules our choices, as determinism persists despite our best efforts to remain free. To resign is to give in, surrender, abandon the lifelong plans and dreams for the future; it marks, for many, a decision of raising the white flag. In life, however, sometimes the choices offered are but a few, and within that limited arena of options, the best must be taken. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The Linguistic Labyrinth

Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way around; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.” #203, Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Life is never a static construct; those who consider it so, are sorely left behind when the winds of change suddenly fill the sails and the slumbering ship awakens with a groan to pull free of its moorings. Left behind are the days when a person could count on the vocation of the parent, or of a career singular throughout. […] Read More …