When the chips are down it’s always easy to wallow in the gloom of a global recession.

But the world doesn’t stop turning, and until we see the four horsemen on the horizon, we need to start seeing the glass as half full. You see, like attracts like, or so the saying goes, and when times get tough, the tough put a smile on their faces and get on with it.

Now, Dubai is a place that’s smile has outshined the rest and dazzled the world for the past few years. The extraordinary vision of The Ruling family and the lack of ‘red tape’ have ensured that the city we see today has risen like a phoenix from the flames. It has done so with such tenacity and success that has generated nothing but audible gasps from around the world.

Now the world is a very different place to what it was, and there is a very definite part of the Western culture that likes to build things up, and very publicly, knock them back down. As the world succumbs to a global credit crisis, the glitter and gold of the UAE has become a target for lazy journalism hell bent on writing Dubai off before it has barely begun.

Well, nowhere is perfect, and it would be naive to believe that the UAE, and Dubai in particular remains unaffected by economic woes the world over. For weeks, it seemed that all we were reading were grossly exaggerated tales of Dubai’s demise written by people who had based their research on an open toped bus tour on the city whilst on a quick stop over.

At last I receive reports more akin to reality! And it is as we read reports such as the links below that we begin to see the things as half full, there might be half missing, but then there is always Dubai.

In the article “Travel: Sheikh and bake in Dubai” by Miriyana Alexander, the author states:

“As my plane left the sandpit, I decided Dubai was like an annoying younger sibling. Precocious, loud, over-the-top - but secretly you admire what it can get away with.”

On another positive note, Matthias S Klein in “Three Cheers for Dubai”, asserts

“Will Dubai collapse? Of course not. And for three very good reasons…”

Despite the overly exaggerated reports of the slowing economy, international jobs, particularly here in the Middle East, will continue to flourish at least in the next few years to come. One thing I suggest is to continue to think positively in our economy and trust the ruling institution that has been strong enough to survive the harsh global downturns.