I’ve seen enough colleagues who are just in it for the money and found a niche inside the company that avoids anything demanding. In that regard you can work in a mind numbing fashion that other, often lower paid, professions also have. I wouldn’t recommend it though because the trouble comes when switching jobs can’t be avoided.
This describes me to a certain degree, and it's perfectly doable. I'm sure a lot of people do this, and I think a lot of the "find something you love" kind of posts are idealistic and unrealistic. I used to love software when I was younger and it was fresh and I still thought I might be a genius who could do something amazing, but then I went it to the real world and discovered that I was fairly average in what I did and, much importantly, anything you do for 40 hours a week becomes boring and a drag. That's why I keep my real interests and hobbies to my spare time where they're limited in time so they can't get boring. But at the same time this means I will never get that good at anything.
There are a small percentage of folk who are really good at programming and are at the bleeding edge making really cool stuff but for the vast majority it's just brick laying for a wage, which I think is fine but programming is exhausting so it's hard to find comfort and not burn out. I manage by having found cool guys to work with so it's a good laugh. I do wonder what I'll do when I finally just don't have the mental resilience to write code anymore and have to find another job.
