Agent, Publisher, or Contest? Which would you choose?

Do you love to write? Do you write for publication? Do you dream of publication?

If the answer to any of the above is yes, I guess my next question is which would you rather do,

send a query letter to an agent, send a query letter to a publisher, or enter a contest?My first dream was to find an agent. Surely that had to be best - someone else who would do all the hard work of researching places my writing my fit, advertising it so the publisher knows it will fit, and making me sound g...