Sunday Tribune Positive Thinking Issue

WE know things are bad. You would have to be living on Mars in recent times not to realise that. Unemployment heading towards half a million; the public finances in free-fall. Taxes set to rise sharply. Consumer spending collapsing. The worst global economic crisis in a century. It has been six months, at least, of relentless, and depressing, gloom and doom.


We have gone, virtually overnight, from unprecedented wealth and prosperity to unprecedented crisis. And, understandably, the change in our fortunes has been hard for all of us to deal with.


But difficult as the current environment undoubtedly is – most particularly for those who have lost their jobs in recent months – the situation is not hopeless. It cannot be.


Author Samuel Johnson once wrote that "hope is necessary in every condition".


We as a country have come through worse, much worse, than this. With that in mind – and to co-incide with our national holiday (a holiday, that despite our tiny size, is celebrated all over the globe), the Sunday Tribune has asked some of our most influential leaders – from politics, business, the arts, religion and elsewhere – to offer messages of hope for our country in these difficult times.


We believe the responses are truly inspirational and we hope you, the reader, find them to be so.