This animation incorporates one line from the more than 200 entries in the 2018 Baldwin Prize with readings by several entrants. The prompt was about destiny: "Write about a time when you felt that you made your own destiny. What steps did you take to shape your future?" 

This year's prize was open to freshmen. More than 200 students responded to the following prompt:

"Write about a time when you felt that you made your own destiny. What steps did you take to shape your future? During the process, did you ever feel that forces other  than your own will were controlling your fate? What were those forces, and how did you deal with them?"

Here's what Bianca wrote.

I wasn’t cut out for success. Kids like myself, who grew up in neighborhoods like mine, in houses with addict family members, who didn’t go farther than middle school, cigar-stained walls, roaches and rats creeping around the floors, just weren’t fit for happy endings. I was meant to fail. I was prepared to fail. Failure was in my DNA. That was my mindset. Where I came from determined how far I go, and at that rate I was going nowhere. Yet I stand today in the realization that that statement is not at all true. My father passed away when I was 4 years old, and I hold a resentment against his addiction every day. In my early years, my family didn’t even bother to take me to school. I would enter the classroom, and the students would ask if I had transferred, if I was sick, etcetera. They were appalled that I had even entered the room. I didn’t understand why they were so worried. I thought that my attendance was anything but abnormal. The police and paramedics constantly at my doorstep, no matter if it was 5 in the morning or 11 at night, just felt normal. I was always the last priority, and I began to make myself a last priority too. If they didn’t care about me, why should I care about myself? Because of this lack of attention at home, I did everything I could to make my peers like me. I spent my Christmas money buying gifts for girls who wanted nothing to do with me, because I was in desperate need of someone to listen to me and understand me. I needed a safe environment.  

My efforts did not work, as I was bullied daily by students in my classes. No one ever got in trouble for what they did to me. At home, they put their addiction first, and at school, they put their pride first. The feeling of loss and loneliness became all too real and familiar. I don’t think I ever thought I had a destiny, let alone any control of it. A happy destiny was for the rich, the smart, and the pretty. I didn’t think I was cut out for a good fate. Eventually though, my family had a turn around. My mother got sober, and she, my grandmother, and I got a new house due to eviction from the prior one. This was around 3 years ago.  

Now allow me to explain the moment in which I finally felt I had control of my destiny. I remember the moment very clearly. It was the best day of my life. It was a sunny day in July, which set the tone of the entire day. Moving day. We walked through the heavy white door and into our new house, and my mother showed me up the steep, auburn wooden steps to my new room. This room was not just my new room, it was the first bedroom I ever had to myself. The walls were a clean white color, and the floor was a grey rug. It had that new house smell, the smell of lavender Febreze and drywall. I used to go to friends’ houses and family members’ houses and see their bedrooms painted their favorite color, with television and posters of young Justin Bieber, and be so envious, because I either had to sleep on a couch in my living room or in my mother’s room and watch whatever pointless soap operas were on the small grey box TV. I  was thankful to have a roof over my head then, but seeing the empty room filled with just a dark wood dresser reminded me that this was a new beginning for me and my family. I recall sitting on the soft rug floor with a friend of mine on the day we moved in. Her name is Charisma.  Even though it was boiling hot in the room due to the not-yet-installed AC, we were organizing my belongings. I finally had something that belonged to me. This moment may seem small, but it made me realize something much bigger. It made me realize that although my past was messy, my future did not have to be. I realized that one day, not just this room, but all that I owned would belong to me, and I had to work harder for myself. This small insignificant moment made me realize that one day I could achieve independence and make this family, who once had nothing, something. I wanted to be a role model. I wanted to be the first in my family to achieve what had never been achieved, and this moment made me realize it was possible. 

After that moment, I realized that the effort I put in would produce similar results. I studied for hours a night and produced grades of A’s and the occasional B. I apprentice in cosmetology on the side, and got my worker’s permit at 14 and immediately got a job in a café, which allowed me to help provide for my family and my personal needs. I have been provided with opportunities to go out of state due to my academic achievements, and I am proud of myself. My pride is not out of vanity or selfishness. It’s solely based on the fact that I never thought a child like myself could be anything, and now I am doing everything most kids my age do not have the motivation to do. What I have taken away from that moment is that where you come from only strengthens you. Use your struggle and transform it into power, and weakness into ability. I didn’t have to lead the life my family did. This moment allowed me to do and realize amazing things, and I am forever grateful for this house because it is not only a structure but a testimony as well. 

Have you ever awoken from a dream feeling as if you could never go back to the you before the dream? Like a bucket of ice water had been thrown upon your sleeping form, startling you awake with force? Sometimes a dream is a vision of prophetic power, sent to warn us of our fate in the world. I only wish that some little angel or demon had ever warned me of my fate. Instead I have run into every day blind, and every day I fear what is to come.  We never understand how much we can do until we are pushed to the breaking point. I know my destiny is far out of my hands, and my only choice is to follow the pull of the tide.

My story is nothing to be marveled or upheld. It is a simple story of a girl, a mouse, and a stone. It was only a month or two ago, when the days were still cold and snow was starting to fall, when my house was visited by mice. In their newfound shelter, they scurried and scampered and made themselves at home. My mother, who has a very intense distaste of the rodents, set glue traps all throughout the kitchen and let the scene play out. Maybe a hour goes by, and the squeals and squeaks in the kitchen tell my sisters that a mouse has been caught. The trap didn't kill instantaneously but only trapped the mouse in a puddle of death. As all three were afraid of mice, I was called in to dispose of the mouse.

I like to consider myself the one in my house who does the dirty work. Now believe me, my mom is willing to do everything in order to provide for me and my sisters, but some things are a strict no. So I come into the kitchen, get a glove, and pull the glue trap from under the counter. My mother yells up from the basement, “Put it in a bag, and throw it away outside.” But as I look into this mouse's tiny black eyes, I know that it will only suffer, pulling its loose flesh over and over, ripping hair and skin, breaking bones, all in the helpless struggle for freedom. This moment might not seem like a world-changing event or significant in any way. But for me, this moment opened a door that I never knew could open. I was now faced with impossible choices, which I had to make because only I could make them for myself. This moment didn't feel like destiny or fate but just free will to make a life or death decision.  

So I yell downstairs, “ What's the quickest way to kill a mouse?” My mother replies, “Hit its skull with a rock."  Now I was old enough to know that this would mean the death of a living thing, no matter what path I chose. I walk outside, place the mouse on the ground, grab a rock, and look into those eyes again. I realized at that precise moment that this was hard for me to do but even harder for the mouse to watch. It can see everything I do and hear every word I speak. I don't know if this mouse can understand language or comprehend its place in the universe. My path and this mouse's path could have crossed by preordained fate or a unlucky set of events, but now this mouse and I were intertwined, and there was no going back.

Smack! I miss. 
Smack! I miss. 
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I hit.
Smack! I miss.
Smack! I kill.
 
The squeaks end. The eyes are lost in a pool of blood and brain and bone. I lift the glue trap and throw it away. Once it falls into the empty abyss of the trash can I burst into tears, hating what I’ve done but hating the fact that I could do it--that I can kill--even more than that. At the time I didn't realize that maybe this was a step on a staircase I was meant to follow. Whatever else I do from now on is a byproduct of that single event. And everybody can laugh at the girl who is crying over a dead mouse because we as a society don't see the importance of that single mouse’s life. But to that mouse, that was the biggest event of its life. It was born, and then it died by my hand. As I walk back into my house, tears streaming down my face, I wonder if it could feel it. If that mouse could feel the impact of the rock and feel the life in its body cease to exist.  I spend the rest of the night crying for the life I took and the self I lost. 

As I think about that day now, I see the meaning of choices. It wasn’t anything crazy or life-threatening that helped me realize a life lesson but just a small mouse. I see now that life is a series of choices. Every choice is a single number in the numerical code that makes us who we are. Every mistake or victory, every feeling or action is a single number. Some of those numbers might be predetermined by mystical forces in the universe, but most of them are decided by us. We are always in control of our destiny, but the only way we live and love and dream is if we make the right choices for ourselves. 

I’m fourteen. That means I don’t get to make a lot of decisions for myself. If I want to go out, I have to ask my mom. If I need money, I need to ask my mom. If I want to go somewhere, I need to ask my mom to drive me there. Moral of the story is, being as I’m still technically a child, I don’t do anything without my mom having the final say. But these past couple months have been different. I’m beginning to shape my future and decide who I want in it, on my own. I began to make my own destiny when I chose to have my father in my life. I’m getting older, and learning to make decisions for myself is becoming more and more important. 

My mother met my father about 15 or 16 years ago. They were in high school. Obviously, they fell in love and conceived yours truly. Or something went seriously wrong. Whatever the case may be, out came me. My mom got pregnant at 15 and had me at 16. I know: that’s pretty young. But she kept and loved me regardless. My father has been in and out of jail his whole life. The drinking didn’t help either. Crime seemed to follow his every step like a shadow. You would think having a newborn and a woman who loved him purely and deeply would make him want to stick around. But that didn’t happen. He went back to prison, and my mom was left to figure it out on her own. But my mom handled it. She made sure I had more than I needed and gave me more love than I ever needed. Her love seemed to be a cup overflowing, and I was here to clean up the mess.

When I was one, my stepfather came into my life. He loved and took care of us both. He likes to tell her, “I loved her before I loved you,” which is kind of mean, if you think about it. For years, he made sure we had more than enough. He took up a job just to make sure we were okay. He was a teenager. He didn’t have to do any of this. But he chose to. When I was around six, he went to prison and would spend the next 3 years there. He was the only dad I’d ever had and ever known. He was in there for a couple months when my father was released from prison. He had nowhere else to go, so he came to our house. He’s giving her the same excuse he’s been giving her for 8 years, and she’s drinking it up, believing every word. I know my mom, and I know that’s not her. Love will make you crazy. That’s what it did to her. She wanted her family together so bad, she couldn’t help but forgive him. Anyway, I start to get to know him, and soon enough, I love him as much as she does. He just has that effect on people, you know? After a few months, I trust him. We bake cookies and go on trips and go to the mall and we’re a family. Then he goes back to prison. Let me tell you this: my father is one of the most intelligent people I know. But sometimes, the smartest people make the poorest choices. His life was a series of terrible, awful choices that were only about him. I hated him. A child should not have all that hate, but I did. I was so spiteful for so long. When my mom told me what happened, I was furious. She had her heart broken by him again. I needed to do something, anything. So I gathered his stuff and ruined everything. Shirts, shoes, pants, brushes, cologne, all of it. I felt as if breaking all of this stuff would compensate for my broken heart. For years, my heart seemed to ache like a bruise. Overthinking made my breath catch like I had missed a step. Alone, I would cave in, screaming until my throat was raw, my voice gone before morning.

​But it was fine. I was fine.

My stepdad came home about two years after, and we were all happy. For the next 5 years, we were fine. But in 2017, I received a letter. While reading the name, my hands trembled like an earthquake, my breath catching in my chest. It was from my father. He said he would be home in March of 2018. It took me a little while to respond, but I read that thing religiously. After a little while, I told him I would like for him to be in my life. We wrote back and forth for a while and got close, despite never talking face to face. Let’s forward to about a month ago, February 23. I was waiting on my dad to come home March 1. My cousin Gabby called me and says, “You’re not gonna believe this!” Then she put my dad on the phone. I cried, and we made plans for the following weekend. We talked about everything when I got there, and I felt this immediate love for him. Love is strange like that, isn’t it? I’ve been with him every weekend since then. Now, I’m not a religious person, but I can’t help but feel this was nothing but God. He kept my father safe in the streets and loved him when they didn’t. There were so many times I could have lost him, but God kept him safe, knowing I would need him. My father and I are trying to be better people, and I’m learning to forgive him while he is learning to forgive himself. I am in no way a saint. But I am getting right with God to thank him for the chance to know my father.