Originally posted by Sunny:

or a little sad for the hours of their life they spent digging up virtual rocks, as you choose.

To be honest, I often find "tedious, repetitive tasks" (such as mining or treechopping in this game) to be relaxing. I can't count the number of times I have dug a huge hole in Minecraft just for the sake of doing so; any materials acquisition was often merely a side-effect.