Bassist existentialism

[dougjwray]

You are, indeed, a professional musician. The only thing wrong is your perspective. I look at it like this:
I am a professional musician who daylights as a software developer to enhance my income.

There are very few musicians who make their living on music alone. Even symphony members will take non music jobs because their music income will not sustain them.

Yes, exactly, and I'm probably going on too much about this, but I have two friends -- an old bandmate (drummer) and a colleague (bassist) who played with people big enough for them to play the Academy Awards, David Letterman, etc., and get a couple of Grammy nominations. While they were doing this, they were picking up construction jobs and painting houses, respectively.

 

[BAG]

As other's have said, the definition of professional has many shades of gray.
I do want to say that your attitude towards the future, in that you don't want to put all your eggs in the "full-time professional musician" basket these days, is a smart move. There simply isn't the kind of money to be made that there once was.