There is a roller coaster in my backyard.

When I was younger, my imagination ran further than my feet could ever take me. My 7-year-old self dreamt of a roller coaster in her backyard. I had it all worked out - I would collect the abandoned axels of my dad's car restoration projects and the dismantled tracks from the retired train route down the road. Then, I would bolt and weld together the project like a 2nd grade collage. It was beautiful, and bright yellow with flames.

Don't tell me it does not exist.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

- Albert Einstein

To function as an adult, I am urged to cover my imagination with crisp black suits and to reschedule any abstract thinking indefinitely. It's frustrating. My realistic success is highly dependent on my art business, and my art business is fueled by imaginative thinking.

Realism is necessary, but imagination is never something to grow out of.

"Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination. But just as a muscle grows flabby with disuse, so the bright imagination of a child pales in later years if he ceases to exercise it."

- Walt Disney

Without the dreamers, we would have never strapped humans to metal and fuel by way of leaving this planet. We would have never logged on to the internet, a completely abstract concept. Even beyond inventions, the underground railroad and the protests for women's rights would be nonexistent. These imaginative ideas became our current reality. So, realistically, we need them.

Within UCF's College of Business, I find liberty in using the resources and knowledge to focus on creative entrepreneurship. I cannot abandon the backyard roller coaster I spent hours conjuring.

Whatever your contraption or concept, let it glide.