There are a lot of professions I admire but not a single one that I admire most. At least not that I am aware of.
Doctors, specifically surgeons. I have some recent personal experience in how the right surgery at the right time can change a person’s life for the better in practically unimaginable ways. It’s borderline magic. That has given me a new admiration for that particular field of human endeavor.
Teachers. This will feel a little like sucking up as my sister, my sister in law, and a bunch of my friends are teachers, but when it comes to brutally difficult, high stress, thankless jobs, teaching has got to be near the top of the list. It’s also critical. I have infinite admiration for teachers.
Software architects. I can write code. I am a programmer. Building a large system from the ground up though? Designing a full system? That’s so far over my head I can’t even fathom it. It’s beyond impressive to me.
This sounds like a suck up, but I’m going to mention it specifically for the twist I’ll put on it. Musicians, artists, photographers. Anything in any creative or artistic field. Not because of the skills required to do the job, which are definitely admirable and in my case often enviable, but for the 99% of the profession that goes along with it. If I had the self-promotional skills, the marketing abilities, the political savvy, whatever you want to call it, to function within the music industry I absolutely would have. Playing an instrument? Making music? I can do that and on good days I can do it well. What I can’t do is everything that is required to sustain yourself within that industry. I can’t sell myself in the necessary ways in order to juggle the 300 different jobs per day that a professional musician (or artist, or photography) needs to, and that put an end to my music career before it even started.
Probably the profession I most admire though is medical researcher. Somewhere out there some scientist in a white lab coat is studying the human body, looking for a way to beat diabetes (or cancer, or MS, or whatever illness or condition you can imagine) and will someday come up with something that makes my step son’s life healthier and better, if not cure his condition outright. When that colossal breakthrough comes, that particular scientist is never going to have to pay for a drink in my town again.
Inside the Red Head's Head 