The problem is it’s so seductively effective. To begin with, it just happens to be true, universally true. Nobody’s perfect. Second, it immediately shifts the onus back onto the other person for even suggesting someone should try to be perfect—and lord knows they certainly aren’t perfect either.

And you can drive a truckload of wrongs through the loophole of “nobody’s perfect.”

This thought first occurred to me years ago when a loved one, someone who particularly liked this handy get out of jail free card, pulled it out in the middle of an argument. In a moment I realized, wait a minute, although obviously true, nobody’s perfect, hiding right in plain sight is the equally obvious truth – nobody is asking anyone to be perfect. It rebuts an imaginary argument that no fair-minded person would make.

Then it came to me: “Although no one can be perfect, anyone can be perfectly sincere.”

I expect to be challenged on this. After all, how do we define “sincere?” And who gets to define it? And how can we know if someone is being sincere? What about deception—pretending to be sincere? There’s that well-known quote that the Internet attributes to the less well-known French novelist Jean Giraudoux “The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.”

There’s even the possibility of self-deception, convincing ourselves we’re sincere and hiding behind that to mask or rationalize our own misdeeds and shortcomings?

These, and many other questions, are fair criticisms of this approach. Sincerity is a nebulous concept that is difficult to pin down even within our own motives, never mind others. But unlike perfection, which is legitimately impossible for any human being, perfect sincerity is attainable. And worth striving for.

In the same way we talk about “a more perfect union,” acknowledging the limitations and imperfections of our current state of politics while simultaneously working toward a higher ideal, so too can we be ever striving to perfect our sincerity—our genuine desire to be authentic, to think, speak and act with integrity, and to do our little part to make things better—however we can.

And it turns out all of us are far more tuned in to the level of sincerity of another person than we might realize. We’re highly social creatures and have a finely-tuned bullshit detector, factory installed. We don’t like it one bit if we sense that someone is being insincere with us. And we’re far more forgiving of an “honest mistake” than when we feel manipulated. 

 Even though we can never be completely sure, we’re always trying to discern other’s true intentions and motivations.