That's inaccurate. It actually boils down to: if you don't love it, you probably won't keep doing it. And if you don't do it, you won't become any good at it. So, take the time to find what you love.
The problem with this overly simplified conceptualization is that there are so very many things that are extremely enjoyable, but require some level of expertise to enjoy them.
Music is a pretty visible example; if no one persisted through the (fairly lengthy) early stage when the noises you can squeak out of your violin are downright offensive, we simply wouldn't have violinists in the world.
I'd feel lost if I couldn't have music in my life; it's something I do every day; but when I started learning as a kid, it was often frustrating and never really fun, though I had some sense that this was going to eventually give me something I wanted.
That very experience -- i.e., work at something for years and it'll really blossom into something that's central to your life -- also gives me the spine to work at other things with no immediate rewards or even much enjoyment at early phases, because I can see the longer path.
Writing code sucked at the start, but I wanted to get the result, and I knew already that if I persisted over months, years.. it would keep getting easier, and it would become enjoyable. Now it's my living, and I pour incredible amounts of time into it.
I wouldn't be doing either of these things if I sat down at the start and said, "well, am I really enjoying this now? If not, perhaps it's just not for me..."
That's because it's perpetually misrepresented. Including by, but not limited to, this article.
Developing a passion takes time and effort. Speaking for myself, I've actively disliked a whole slew of things until I developed enough skill to appreciate it. The stage between starting an endeavor and finding satisfaction in it can be very damn long.
Beginner to intermediate just-about-anything isn't "fun" and won't inspire feelings of "passion" or "love". That doesn't mean people should be discouraged by their pursuit.
Some are fortunate to either be very talented or very inspired very early on. That's the exception, not the rule.
Beginner to intermediate just-about-anything isn't "fun" and won't inspire feelings of "passion" or "love".
I haven't found that to be universally true. Beginner to intermediate programming is really great, if you start it in a sensible way that foregrounds some of why it's interesting up front, with enough tools to let you make something happen fairly soon. The first 30 minutes of playing with Logo when I was in elementary school were amazingly eye-opening, and I couldn't put it down for weeks! It was pretty awesome really, you could give these commands to draw turtle graphics, and then change them to draw others, and then learn new techniques to make fancier things, etc., etc.
Unfortunately I think most people approach programming less in the way Papert was trying to promote, and more in the coding-death-march sort of way where you take a high-school class that lectures about C++ syntax for weeks. The hacker scene has a better angle on it, imo; plenty of first-time attendees at places like SuperHappyDevHouse and Maker Faire see an inspiring side of technology they missed in school.
