A great thing about being a programmer is getting to complain about the crappy requirements you have to work with. SQL, on the other hand, is not a program - it’s a precise specification of the result you want, in a format that lets the database engine write the “program” for you. Thus, writing SQL helps you appreciate the struggle to achieve good requirements, and there is a chance you will develop empathy for those cursed to write them.

Well, it is in the name. Structured Query Language. And I would argue that it is very often right mind send. You are trying to query data, not process it. Thus actually making it query seems rather reasonable paradigm.