Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
Do other species experience the same phenomena? You know — of the feeling of late; or, more precisely, the pressures and stresses of “being late”, or some similar state of being. How does the feeling come about; what creates it; and when does it go away such that there is no internal pressure that exacerbates the feeling we place under the general aegis of “stress”? […]
It is a chance or accidental event which turns out to be a momentous, joyful one; and while its occurrence may have been unexpected, it is not unwelcome after the event takes place or reveals itself, precisely because of the joy it brings. Thus does a serendipitous event surprise us; for, one’s daily experience is that the opposite is true: chance occurrences, accidental events and unexpected moments normally result in negative consequences we want to avoid. […]
At what point does the rate of return diminish to the extent that it is “no longer worth it.”? And, what is the “it” referring to? Is it the effort expended in contrast to the compensation received? Is it the dividends paid upon an investment ignored? Often, in all of the contexts just described, the focus is upon the wrong point; it is not the “end product” or the final sum that should determine […]
There are those who make it their life’s goal not to have remorse for decisions made; but is that truly a worthwhile achievement? At the end of it all, is there a special space on the unwritten tombstone that lists the mistakes avoided, the embarrassments averted, and the admissions of deficiencies concealed? Is that not where much of Shakespearean web of deceits are constructed from – of attempting to cover up the insufficiencies otherwise already apparent in the foreboding appearances we attempt to portray? […]
There is an overriding principle that, where excellence is sought, higher expectations are exceeded. Acceptance of a given human condition and resignation to that which is less than the best, is to embrace the heart of banality and to reject that august status reserved for the human species, of being above the animals and just below the angels. There is a syndrome for that; of thinking and believing that one’s situation is all that one can hope for, and this resignation to life’s circumstances occurs when mediocrity becomes the meddlesome cousin to dashed hopes and dreams, […]
We learn at an early age to create a world of make-believe; of knights and princesses extracted not from the dungeons of the feudal world steeped in hunger, mass epidemic deaths and living conditions unfit even for the rats which lived and traveled freely in the underbelly of wealthy kings and courtesans, but from the literary imaginations of later dreamers. Or of happiness couched in syllables of uncertain saliency, where we talk ourselves into believing that fairness is inherent in games of chance, that speeches make for belief, and what people do behind closed doors are for the privacy of minds and mindless chatter, not for public consumption before the vote is cast. […]