Just because this deserves quoting and passing on: Steven Augustine in a post otherwise dedicated to a rant on Norte Americano myths of Niggratude.

We need a non-mercantile equivalent for the word “career”. We need a word denoting a long-term pursuit of creative projects, or project, in which the quality of the ongoing results evolve with experience, but in which the effort is not motivated by the promise of money, or likewise judged by its monetary potential. We need a term like that and there is none; just the vaguely-insulting “avocation” (which imputes, somehow, a touching childishness or eccentricity) or the explicitly insulting “hobby” (for which “skill” plays no necessary role).

At one time... drop the prefix.. vocation had such a meaning.