These recent years feel like the most perplexing times our generation has ever experienced. More and more, our present has been worn away and reshaped, confining us to a world that tests our ability to envision a welcoming future or give us reasons to smile about it. A smile, however, remains one of the most powerful tools we have – not as a means of escaping reality or succumbing to cynicism, but as a defiant act of hope.