Before I start I'll address the first point - yes, everything has good and bad sides, but that includes things/people you love. I doubt Beethoven always loved composing, or Einstein always loved doing science - it's a net thing, and when it involves something/somebody you love, the joy vastly exceeds the cost.

> Applying the concept of love to something as mundane as a job is ridiculous

Please, speak for yourself. You might find it ridiculous, you might not think it important to do something you love, and you'd be joining the 99.999% of people out there who live their lives treating the vast majority of their waking hours as being somehow irrelevant to happiness. But consider this - you might be wrong.

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Russell

>Just a couple of generations ago, a job was a job was a job? Why, because a job meant survival. You either work your ass off, or you and your family starve. Did all these people love the hard labor, getting up at 4am to tend to a withering field? These generations were much more fatalistic about life and accepted bad things as an inevitable part of life."

Yes - some generations ago, work meant misery for the majority of people but - newsflash - we're not a couple of generations ago. We have experienced miraculous changes in the way the majority of people live, and it would be quite the insult to all those who have struggled to change things to say 'well it was misery generations ago, so why treat it any differently now?' - I can't think of a more retrograde or negative attitude. A few generations ago people died from simple infections - so why bother administering antibiotics? You could go on in that vein.

For some of us there is more to engaging in a certain activity than its ends, where the work itself transcends its purpose and becomes a pleasure in itself - a craftsman who really cares about his work sees the world very differently from a administrative functionary whose work is, by definition, mundane, repetitive and meaningless to them.

It's not all jobs, hell it's very few jobs out there, and certainly not for everybody - not everybody has it in them, or even the desire, to love their work but for those of us that do it is a very real possibility.

A lot of the problem I have with your attitude is that, for the minority who do see work as more than just a means-to-an-end, it is quite a struggle to fight against the prevailing attitude that you demonstrate and I really find it surprising that an HNer feels that way, and is especially frustrating for me as I am stuck in a job I emphatically am very unhappy in, fighting and struggling to get myself up to a level of ability where I can get a job in which I can practice my craft happily, and as a result I am considered fairly mad by a chunk of my friends + family.

pg puts it far more eloquently than I could [1]:-

"The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it—even if they had to work at another job to make a living."

A few generations ago getting a job you love just wasn't possible for the vast majority. Now, and especially in software development, it is, and in fact as a result of the cheapness and ubiquity of computers + open source, etc. it is possible for somebody (at least in the west) to really pursue the craft regardless of circumstances. Please don't downplay that - it's nothing short of a damn miracle, really.

[1]:http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html