Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
It is the “high” of reaching it and the satisfaction of proceeding down and away. The ascent is focused upon attaining a goal; the descent, a time of reflection in the satisfaction of knowing that the goal has been achieved. What next? That is what the challenge is, isn’t it? Of knowing what to do next after something has been achieved and accomplished? […]
In childhood, we retained many illusions; as adulthood came to fruition, such illusions were slowly stripped away, one by one, until reality hardened the sunlight of hope and replaced them with the gloom of daily existence. Then, sometime later in life, when maturity formed the mold of contentment and latter-day fancies allowed for happiness to reside, we came to compromise with life’s misgivings, […]
The first two in the tripartite of conceptual constructs are similar in meaning; the third and last, an extension beyond where it may include a historical background of the first two but emerge with a separateness of conclusion from them. To endure is similar to surviving; to survive, to endure the difficulties and maintain a semblance of remaining intact. […]
We are told from a very early age that we must have one; like winds that carry seasonal warmth and jet streams that bring unseasonable temperatures, we are ingrained to be purposive, teleological and focused upon the goal in mind. Wisdom-filled proverbs echo beyond the history […]
Did we ever have a voice in it? Was there a consensus of voices, a roll call of votes cast, or a participatory democracy in action that allowed for a resolution that resulted in it? Or, as in authoritarian countries (and some would include ours in that category), was there a “Master Planner” who decided that this way we live […]
Is it just? And of the query, what meaning do we ascribe to it? Of one formulation, an implied addendum unspoken – as in, “Is life just about going through the motions, or is there more to it than that?” In another manner of meaning, it can encapsulate the greater paradigms of fairness, balance and equality of opportunity: the ‘just’ is merely an abbreviation of the greater concept of ‘Justice‘ with a capital J. Or, perhaps the duality of meanings is intended – for, in the former manner of speaking, is there not an implicit denotation that the wider connotation is inferred […]
There are people who, by their very carriage, command respect and deference; it is like the royal crest without intimate knowledge of lives or spoilage in whispers behind shuttered windows – it is just presumed. Does man possess a latent dignity beyond the carrion of an eagle’s flight? Are we, indeed, just below the angels, and above the fray of predatory delights? […]