Well, I guess that depends.
I would think that any career that demands that you learn a variety of very different skills over time would create the most brain growth. But I'm no specialist on this. Just my opinion.
I remember Rex Sikes saying that while people hate frustration, brains love it. The brain goes through the most growth when you are doing something that is very frustrating. This means that learning is going on. That is, if it is good frustration and not some kind of mental block.
I remember the NLP story about the dolphins being trained to do new behaviors every day. A dolphin in particular got extremely frustrated because it couldn't make the connection. One day, it appeared to be very agitated. The next day, it started demonstrating new behavior after new behavior after new behavior. It had learned what it was being rewarded for (which was demonstrating a behavior previously unrewarded).
Really, any job can be the most stimulating. It depends on how you use your awareness. If you task yourself with doing old things in new ways and stay true to that demand, just about any job can be challenging, rewarding, and generate a lot of cerebral activity and growth.
In the book Flow, the author talks about this guy who worked one of the most boring jobs on the planet (assembly line worker) who was one of the happiest people he had studied. The guy was a fairly old guy who challenged himself to assemble the product in various ways. Either faster or more efficiently, or whatever. He introduced variety into the situation with his own brain.
The thing is, at least the way I look at it, we tend to want to do things the easy way, and this way doesn't necessarily lead to improvement or growth. Challenging ourselves is hard, and it hurts, so we avoid it.
Of course, if you master your own consciousness, the level is continually between that which is too challenging and that which is too easy. It's that sweet spot where flow is, and if you have the ability to use your consciousness so that whatever you do is done so that it creates flow ... well, you have a real gift.
Also, if you're into cerebral growth, you may want to consider figuring out this answer for yourself. Researching the problem yourself, pondering the facts and the possibilities, and coming up with your own conclusions is more difficult and rewarding than going to a forum and asking to be told what your answer is. See how we tend to do what is easiest rather than what may be best?
It's an attitude thing rather than a career choice, I think.
[This message has been edited by babayada (edited August 09, 2004).]
You're always photoreading and having to deal with people, anticipate challenges, etc. 