My Grandfather smoked his whole life. I was about 10 years old when my mother said to him, "If you ever want to see your grandchildren graduate, you have to stop immediately." Tears welled up in his eyes when he realized what exactly was at stake. He gave it up immediately. Three years later he died of lung cancer. It was really sad and destroyed me. My mother said to me- "Don't ever smoke. Please don't put your family through what your Grandfather put us through." I agreed. At 28, I have never touched a cigarette. I must say, I feel a very slight sense of regret for never having done it, because your post gave me cancer anyway.
Less deraily...
Here's more advice that can help you, but probably won't be taken:
Figure out what you love that makes other people happy. Make that your job. It's not easy, and there may not even be a market for it-- yet. Create that market, if so.
Currently, I work as a professional GM-- as in, Dungeons and Dragons GM. I realized, after years of playing on line and in person, that there were always more players than GMs. I love collaborative storytelling, and I'm really, really good at it. And so, I've shopped my services to folks who have played with me before, and encouraged them to tell their friends. It was slow going, and I couldn't have started it without another job to fall back on, but now that I'm going, it's amazing. I don't just love work, I love getting ready for it. I love talking about it, and the payoff of hearing/reading people excited about what they're doing. It's amazing.
It's also *HARD*. Selling myself was the the most difficult part for me, but I also have to work constantly to be creative and to understand what my players want and expect. I have to fulfill those expectations, and it's meant learning a lot of new skills. It means that, for every hour of "play time", I'm putting in 2 hours of work that no one realizes or sees, and as self employed, I have to be extremely disciplined about it-- though the funny part is, part of that discipline has also been knowing when to stop working for a day, to balance in other needs. It's a ton of work, and the pay isn't great, but I'm happy with it.
Every single job that anyone has, someone, somewhen, was the first to pitch it, to realize that this was something that improved the lives of others, and that they were good at it enough to be compensated for their talent, their passion, and their contribution to the lives of others. Creating a new job isn't easy, and it's not something to dive whole-hog into without having at least a steady day-job backing you up while you try (and possibly fail). It will mean feeling like you're working 3 jobs while you're setting it up, because you WILL be working 3 jobs while you do. But in the end, it boils down to figuring out how what *you* love makes the lives of others *better*, and then doing that with enough expertise that you can make them realize it, too. If you want a fulfilling job, don't wait for someone to offer it to you-- MAKE it.