Sincerity - MIT Attribute of Your Personality Essay Prompt - Editing

Here is the prompt:
What attribute of your personality are you most proud of, and how has it impacted your life so far? This could be your creativity, effective leadership, sense of humor, integrity, or anything else you'd like to tell us about. (*) (200-250 words)

Could someone give me some ideas about how my essay could be pieced together more effective, perhaps in a clearer manner, while also cutting down on the essay's length (289 words)? I don't really have any stellar personal examples, but the topic has meaning to me. I also wondered if the literary points were tangents and could be made more brief. Thanks!

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." As quoted by aesthetic Oscar Wilde, it is a shame that this ideal, sincerity, is cast in such a light. Yet, it cannot be denied that this maxim has truth; with the arrival of the information age, people increasingly have been proved to be more active in lying, individually and in business, and on a grander scale.

I desire a greater presence of sincerity today, and a true version at that. This is not just a moral plea but the trait which lets us work together and achieve great things as humans. What could we build upon if we did not know what we could trust?

I can often look to literature and the history surrounding it to show the extent of this dishonesty. The Roaring Twenties, as shown in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, were a time of muddled morals, where people created masks for themselves among trivial niceties to cover up true sincerity for personal gain. The Great Depression after it also found humanity in question as it pertained to the story told by Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, where business profit became the driving force in deception. In essence, the fall of sincerity became a fall in our value of humanity.

Relationships, the building blocks of our world, are the better when we consider this concept. For my friends, since I can "get real" and give them an honest opinion, I am often their helping hand; I get calls all the time asking for information about maybe a test, homework, or even college applications. Just being there, sincerely, to answer even the smallest questions convinces me what a difference it makes.

people increasingly have been proved to be more active in lying, individually and in business, and on a grander scale. - sort of unclear.

This is not just a moral plea, but

The Roaring Twenties, as shown in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, was

Maybe tell less about the history of sincerity, and more about how it has affected you, instead of just two sentences at the end. Good ideas though.

This is WAYY to complicated. This is supposed to be where you can let your personality shine, not inundate others in a myriad of sophisticated verbiage (see what I just did? haha I'm so clever). Anyways, you have to talk more about YOU and less about the name of books you like. The most effective essays say something simple, but reveal something deep about the author. For example, you sound like you have a passion for literature. Say that! Don't wander around the topic because you only have 250 words - you don't want to bore the reader. Anyways, this is just my advice. Good luck.

...became the driving force behind deception. In essence, the fall of sincerity became a fall in our value of humanity. The last part of this sentence could be written in a clearer way.

... information about maybe a test, homework, or even college applications. Just being there, sincerely, to answer even the smallest questions convinces me what a difference it makes. and again here, you can do a little better, I think. I have some ideas about how you could end it, but I'm not telling! You write very well, and I think you could make this ending much more powerful. I don't think this is too complicated, though, and I don't think it fails to express who you are.

Thank you for your input everyone