Your Complete Publisher Specializing in Unabridged Works

Being “Off” is a relative term around The Pyrateheart Press. Do I mean it is important to be off kilter, off center, off norm? Or does it refer to any of the other forms of being “off”? Perhaps I mean going off? As in letting everyone around you know how you feel at volumes the neighbors can hear the next county away. 

As useful as it is to think outside of the lines and operate independently in thought and action, this is about actually being off. About Putting down your work, setting aside the drama of an everyday life, turning off the damnable cell phone and all the other electronic leashes we’ve attached to ourselves and letting the World go.

When I worked on ships, we had a term I grew to hate. The term? T.C. Till Complete. It meant you worked the job until it was complete even if it meant going around the clock. I saw many a sunrise and sunset and sunrise again when I was in the Navy.

In the shipyards if you weren’t working seven days a week, twelve hours a day, you weren’t working. Period. It was that way most of my ship repair career. Construction? They have a term I grew to hate as well. Shut Down. It meant the system would be shut down so you could do the repairs. Often this meant they shut down a system on Friday evening and you had until Monday morning at six a.m. to get it done.

My fondest memories are of me and my son as I sat in the requisite thrift store leather recliner, complete with duct tape, as we watched cartoons until I fell asleep. Then I would wake up, change my socks and underwear and head back out. Often without a shower.

It makes for great stories. I have a fine collection of incredible stories about jobs I have done and places I have been to do those jobs and you know what? I would trade them all to get back some of the time and take it “off”. Spend the time with my son. Enjoy my friends. Enjoy doing nothing for nothing’s sake.

Nobody wants “I needed to spend more time at the office” etched into their headstones. If I have learned anything these later years of my life is how important it is to be off. Just off. Read a book. Binge watch Netflix. Call all your friends on the phone and harass them. Spend time with your family. Irritate them for giggles. Sleep in the roll over and take a nap or two. Spend time alone. Really truly alone like in no cell phones or internet.

In the end, how you spend your time off is up to you. Just take the time to be off. I promise you; you won’t regret it.

Guest post by R. Ross Whalen – Editor The Pyrateheart Press.