What is your dream?
As a kid, I dreamed of being a scientist and working in outer space. Like many of my generation, I was inspired by Star Wars. I loved the Jedi and fancied being one myself, but I was absolutely fascinated with spacecraft. I would spend hours in grade school drawing spaceships and orbital space stations while the rest of the class worked on their lessons. I wasn’t alone. My friends were equally captivated by stories of adventure, exploration, and distant galaxies.
Then I saw TRON.
A new passion formed. I wanted a computer so badly I could taste it.
TRON inspired me. I dreamed of creating virtual worlds where my programs could live. I even imagined living inside the Grid myself. In fact, I rode a light cycle to school every day. To be fair, everyone else just saw an old beat-up BMX bike, but in my mind I was racing through neon pathways and fighting for the users.
I wrote my first real program in seventh grade. Unsurprisingly, it was a space game filled with rockets, asteroids, and invading aliens. I still remember how incredible it felt to create something from nothing and then watch other people enjoy it. For the first time, I realized that technology wasn’t just about machines. It was about imagination. It was about building experiences. I was a computer astronaut, pushing bits around and shaping tiny worlds through code.
After college, I worked as a civil engineer, helping shape the physical world through software. Roads, neighborhoods, utilities, and infrastructure all began as digital models. We used technology to transform ideas into reality. Yet even then, I continued to dream about creating places where my love of science, technology, storytelling, and imagination could collide.
Then one day, something unexpected happened.
It smelled like dirt and diesel. Large earth-moving vehicles roared around us while steelworkers and construction crews busily shaped the terrain. We navigated deep ruts and temporary walkways, eventually making our way toward the center of a massive construction site. Tall rock spires reached into the sky all around us.
Then I felt goosebumps.
A grin spread across my face as we rounded a corner and suddenly there it was: a place that had once existed only in my imagination.
It hit me.
Soon, people of all ages would walk through this world. Families would create memories together. Children would stare wide-eyed in wonder. Guests would experience an adventure powered by technology, science, storytelling, and imagination.
In that moment, I realized something profound.
Dreams don’t always come true the way we expect.
As children, we imagine ourselves piloting starships, exploring distant worlds, or living inside fantastical adventures. Reality often takes us down a different path. Yet sometimes, years later, we discover that we have arrived at those dreams by routes we never could have predicted.
I wasn’t flying the Millennium Falcon. I wasn’t living on a space station. I wasn’t racing light cycles across the Grid. But I was helping build experiences that allowed others to dream. And somehow, that felt even better.
Standing there, surrounded by imagination being transformed into reality through creativity, engineering, technology, and human determination, I realized I had spent my entire career chasing the same dream that began in childhood. Not a dream of becoming a hero in someone else’s story, but a dream of helping create stories that inspire others.
That realization led me to think about dreamers.
Every meaningful thing that exists today began as someone’s dream. A bridge. A spacecraft. A novel. A work of art. A scientific breakthrough. A technology that changes lives. Someone imagined it before it existed. Then they did the difficult work of bringing it into reality.
The world advances because dreamers refuse to accept that things must remain as they are. They imagine what could be and then get to work. The dream itself is important, but the courage to pursue it is what changes the world.
So let me ask again:
What is your dream?
Maybe it’s something you’ve carried with you since childhood. Maybe it’s something new. Maybe it’s so ambitious that you’re afraid to say it out loud.
That’s okay. Dream it anyway. Pursue it anyway. Because you never know where the path will lead. One day, years from now, you may find yourself standing in a moment that makes you stop and smile. A moment when you realize that the dream never really left you.
It simply found a different way to come true.
As a boy, I dreamed of becoming a scientist in outer space. Life had other plans. Instead, I became an engineer, a builder, a storyteller, and a dreamer.
Looking back, I realize I wasn’t chasing rockets or light cycles at all.
I was chasing wonder.
And that’s a dream worth keeping.
