Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
The two go hand-in-hand, although we may not necessarily see them as unalterable couplets forever ensconced and inseparable. Instead, we often make choices, then afterwards, express our regrets without having learned from the process of “choice-making”. Choices available are often unanalyzed and nebulous;
There are periods in our lives when life is seemingly “on hold”. Of times when we know not what to do; of careers that have hit a brick wall; of unhappiness over present circumstances; perhaps even of deteriorating family relationships that fail to reveal a glimmer of hope for improvement; and of a medical condition that becomes chronic with the realization that we must accept it, live with it, and endure the accompanying symptoms for a life-long struggle. […]
Without one, military operations are doomed at the outset; with one, one can retain a false sense of security within the relative insularity of a conceptual paradigm. Strategies need to be malleable and adaptable; otherwise, when the hypothetical hits the practical, the seams of a well-knit sweater can quickly begin to come apart. That is why the best chess players have already considered not only ten moves ahead, […]
Some avoid it; others run to it like an obsession that cannot be abandoned; and for most, it is merely a daily habit that must be tolerated. The face in the mirror that we view in order to “present” ourselves to the world is the one we are born with, attempt to alter in multiple ways throughout different stages of life – perhaps by artificial means ranging in spectral thunders of surgical alterations, color-dying, parting the hair on the left side instead of the right; trying to cover that growing bald plate that shines like a heavenly orb […]
It is an interesting device. We can try and project back to a time of its non-existence, or at least when not every household owned one. What could it have been like? Where the hour was guessed at by the position of the sun – or was that not even part of the thought process? Did the sun, dawn, dusk and twilight merely present a foreboding for a different paradigm? […]
Is most of life a frown, with a few smiles which make it all worthwhile? Or is it perceived as its opposite – of predominantly smiles, with some frowns interspersed throughout? Is that like the test-question for psychological health, of whether the glass is seen as half empty, or half filled? Does the answer to the question depend upon the mood of the moment, the ethereal pattern of the day, or the fabric of that which is woven into our DNA by a matrix of unassailable conventions? There is, to be sure, a weight of paradigms and an interwoven context which cumulatively aggregates into a “personality” of who one is; […]
Whether used metaphorically or in stark linguistic pragmatism but described with a shroud of nicety cloaked by innuendo and oblique allusion, the aggregate of detritus produced and scattered is daunting when calculated by daily volume, multiplied by the current population, and exponentially projected […]
Sometimes, it is the striving itself which has propelled the continuation of action without thought, constancy without interruption, deterioration without remedy, and life without living; and amidst the automatic pilot which has carried forth the daily treadmill of forward progression, one looks back and wonders, Where did the time go? Where did the concept come from — of unmanned space flights, drones without onboard pilots and driverless cars? Yet, we need only look at ourselves in the mirror, and realize that the reflection which looks back is merely an image which disappears when the eyes close, […]
There are countless titles of books which predicate upon the presumptuous endeavor; palm readers who, for a prepaid fee, make their living from it; and wanderers who trek the Himalayas in search of it. Others merely change the definition or meaning of what constitutes the achieved goal, or drink themselves silly when self-deception fails to fulfill. The problem with happiness is that it was once a byproduct of our lives; when it became the end-goal, the very nature and essence of it became unachievable. […]