what does being a jeweler mean?

So, relating back to things that have been bouncing around in my head, as well as the grad meeting Monday where we talked about how to define the field and where we think we fall in it, I'm feeling a bit at sea about where I stand and what I want to be...
I used to believe very firmly in the stance of I must make my designs. When I first started doing the production work and sent things out to be cast, that was hard for me. I felt like I was betraying some standard or failing some unspoken test. That attitude came from my undergrad education. Hand work was god. The flexshaft (or anything powered) was viewed as lesser- exception being the kilns. The flexshaft was only to be used when you could not do something by hand. And by could not, I mean the tool doesn't exist to get the task done. We never learned to sandblast, polish, or tumble, as those involved machines. So knowing this, it's not a stretch to see how the idea of you personally not being the one to make a piece is abhorrent to that mindset.
From doing production, I still feel/felt like I needed to be the one doing the bulk of the work- otherwise it seemed unfair? to be selling it as my work. However, I did realize that unless I could clone myself, something had to change. So I began to buy some stone setting and findings, as well as send everything out for casting. If I had continued with the shows, I probably would've looked into an intern to help with casting cleanup. But I still clung to certain things- making/injecting my own waxes for one... although I did relax that somewhat in the last couple of years.
Now, where am I? I thought that coming back to school would drive me further towards working on hand-laboured one-of-a-kind work. Reinstate a lot if that old dogma. It hasn't. I'm swinging further in the other direction. I now think I would like to design for some firms- or sell some of my designs to be produced. I'm looking at the new technologies and thinking that I'm perfectly fine with outsourcing that part. I'm thinking that so much of my production work is too labor-intensive for what it is. I need to streamline that. I'm also thinking that returning to the shows is something that I'm not particularly interested in. I don't think it is a viable financial decision. I want to continue to make, but I'm thinking more broadly about that term. I'm much more interested in following the European designer path, than anything I've seen here. In a perfect world, I'd like to work with companies to produce some of my designs, and continue to make others myself. I think what I would keep making would be jewelry....
This is not to say that I don't want to make things. I do. Very much. It is a part of who I am, but I'm not sure that I will be able to call myself a jeweler in a couple years. And I'm unsure how I feel about that. Is there a word I'd prefer? Am I turning my back on a large part of me if I don't use the word jeweler? I don't know. I do know that this is a big change in my outlook of where I'm heading. And I don't feel like I have a road map for this trip.....