If you're going to be a pro athlete, you need to love to practice, drill, and train, not just play. If you're going to be a race car driver, you have to love to hear the sound of the engine and feel the vibration as you go down the road, not just the thrill of winning. If you're going to be a musician, you need to love the feel of the instrument in your hand. If you're going to be a writer, you need to love words, grammar, typing, and editing. If you're going to be a painter, you need to love working with paint, not just imagining great subjects.

If you're going to dedicate your life to programming, you have to love code: syntax, text editing, refactoring, commenting, testing, debugging, tuning. All of that low-level stuff. The problem-solving and learning-new-technology fun parts are just the icing on the cake.