You're not really disagreeing with me, but you're arguing with me. Maybe I'm not being clear enough. What we "enjoy" (however you might define it), or even what we're good at, is extremely malleable. Yet people try to find that one activity that magically clicks and that needs to then be their career. I learned to enjoy running, because it incorporates elements that appeal to me (incremental improvement, for example), but I fucking hated it when I started. That's how it is with a lot of things.
I agree with the majority of what you're saying. Knowing what you'll enjoy relies on enjoying the component parts of that activity. Finding new activities that you'll enjoy requires you to look at the reasons why you enjoy that activity at a granular level.
Where I disagree is the claim that you don't enjoy programming. If you enjoy most of the component parts of an activity, my claim is that you actually do enjoy that activity.
Let's take hiking as an example. I can claim that I don't actually like hiking, I just like being outside, being in the forest, and walking. Hiking is therefore just one of a multitude of activities that could meet those desires. However, because my "likes" comprise the vast majority of the appeal of hiking, it is fair to say that I actually do enjoy hiking.
Ultimately, this is a semantic distinction. My claim is that by the commonly used definition of an "enjoyable activity," I would classify programming as an activity that you at least moderately enjoy.
It can be the opposite as well. I liked programming when I started doing it, over 30 years ago now. I don't like doing it anymore, although I am "good at" doing it, and it's really the only skill I have that will earn me the income I want to have. I will happily abandon it the day I retire and at least right now I my first priority is going to be reducing the amount of computer technology in my life to the absolute minimum.
