When I was a child growing up in Dublin the biggest compliment you could pay someone was to say they were ‘the genuine article’. Sincerity was something to aspire to, and we witnessed it daily in people’s actions and words.

In our carefully curated, photoshopped and filtered world, we are more drawn to the genuine than ever. It’s the quality we most want our institutions, our communities and our leaders to embody. And yet we sometimes forget, that like most things we want to influence or change, it starts with us.

Our challenge is to go beyond saying it like we mean it.
We need to practice being it so that others can feel it.

Image by Jody Sticca.