A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply objective counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain.
Classically, there were only three : divinity, medicine, and law—the so-called "learned professions." The main milestones which mark an occupation being identified as a profession are:
With the rise of technology and occupational specialization in the 19th century, other bodies began to claim professional status: pharmacy, veterinary medicine, nursing, teaching, librarianship, optometry and social work, all of which could claim, using these milestones, to be professions by 1900.
Just as some professions rise in status and power through various stages, so others may decline. This is characterized by the red cloaks of bishops giving way to the black cloaks of lawyers and then to the white cloaks of doctors.[clarification needed] More recently formalized disciplines, such as architecture, now have equally long periods of study associated with them.
In... in this life there’s so much distraction it seems
to consume my mind.
All the time that I’ve spent on nothing, it could make an
endless line.
The shortness of our time in this life should cause an
urgency, a passion for what lasts.
Eternity is the line that we must cast... cast.
This is the line our hearts’ blood must sign...
This is the line our hearts’ blood must sign...
to be completely sold out, to firmly plant our feet, to
stand,
to never compromise our stance and lift the weak when
they can’t stand... stand.
This song is my profession. These words you hear are
mine.
This life is not my own life. This is my heart’s
resign... resign.
This is my heart’s resign. This is my heart’s resign.