My Definition of the word "Professional"

My definition of the word "professional" explains a lot about my life trajectory. I just looked it up in the dictionary. It simply means getting paid for doing something. I knew that. But I had a much grander idea that it meant being trained or practiced in doing something so well that you could do it in spite of whatever was going on around you or in your head and heart. If I admired some one's professionalism, my view was that they could play a perfect concert during a disaster, or teach their college class while their mother lay dying. That kind of thing.

My personal, misguided, definition had nothing to do with pay. It had to do with being able to put on the hat of your profession and leave the rest of your life behind. My notion was that if one was practiced enough, trained enough, you could perform your craft well under any circumstances.

I hold to my notion and am not surprised that I left out the importance of the pay part. I have pretty much ignored that part of every action of my life. I am not proud of this, it just has been so.

I think I was also misguided by some residual class consciousness from my youth. This person was a professional. That one was blue collar.  That makes no sense in terms of pay. They are both being paid. It also doesn't make sense in terms of training. Both have had to be trained. The Dalai Lama is not a professional meditator. He doesn't get paid to meditate. In my qualifications he would be  the ultimate professional. In the dictionary definition, not.

So, every soldier we have is a professional. They get paid. I had also a mental mix up between "career" soldier and other soldiers. They are all trained. They all get paid. So, I guess the mercenaries are just the smartest ones because they get paid a truck load more and don't have to pretend to follow international laws.

The  one formal training I had was in massage. I took the training very late in life. Everything else I had learned was empirically learned. I had learned by being an apprentice or by taking a course. I was really impressed with the massage training because it gave me assurance which clients felt through my hands. After I learned technique, I added my intuition and life knowledge. It worked for me. I actually wished at that time that I had taken some other trainings in my lifetime.

I know why this thought came to me today. The young woman behind the counter at the market was just great. I had the thought that she was really professional and then self corrected. She was just a sunshine personality who also did her job flawlessly.