Essay contest

At school this month they are having an essay contest. The promt is "How I've positively influenced someone's life". The prizes are, $150 for first place, $100 for second place, and $50 for third, and I've decided to enter!
I wrote the essay this morning at work. Turns out the first draft only took half an hour. Now there's a lot of editing to do!
For starters I can't even enter my essay yet because it is too long. I had gone between 50 to 75 words over the maximum word count of 750, and after some changes I went down to only nineteen words above. The funny thing is, I suspected that was going to happen. I always get carried away! Only once or twice have I had problems meeting the minimum word count.
I also don't like one of the paragraphs or the conclusion. They get the message across, but I don't like the way I wrote them, so I gotta re-write those. That's what writing is about anyways, editing. I've heard of a couple of writers give the same advice: never be happy with your work,you can edit and edit and edit and always get it to be better.
Now depending on the outcome two things will happen. Either A) I will win, even if it's just third price and I will feel SO unbelievably good about my writing. It would kind of be like proof to me that it's not just in my head, I might actually have a talent for this(Also getting at least $50 for such a short essay seems amazingly cool to me). Or B) I will lose and I will shrug my shoulders and take it. Choosing to be a writer for a living is taking a huge risk, and rejection is something I have to get used to. I just hope I am actually able to just accept it if I lose.
And to encourage me that things are possible through perseverance
Wish me luck!