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. In the face of ever-intensifying climate catastrophes worldwide, wars waged ruthlessly against international laws, the threat of unregulated AI, rising polarisation in society, and the alarming rise of anti-democratic populist forces, smiling becomes our act of defiance, a rejection of a reality we refuse to conform to. Inevitably, smiling creates spaces where new ideas flourish, inclusive movements are nurtured, and a better tomorrow is forged, spreading a contagious spirit of resistance. Losing our smile means losing our future.
