The front pages of our local newspapers are intimidating indeed. If ‘The World Sees Red’, will Malaysia see blue? Of course not. Malaysia is just a small country, a drop in the ocean compared to the superpowers.

The bloodbath is not only in the Asian markets but also the European markets.

We are in for a tough time ahead. I am not being a pessimist but just want to be prepared.

The question now is, not to blame others for what has happened through no fault of ours, but how do we navigate ourselves during this trying and difficult time to come out unscathed? Perhaps coming out with just a few bruises and with a valuable experience.

We can find lots of reasons for feeling down and becoming a bona fide pessimist doesn't mean that we should. The fact is, optimism creates opportunity and pessimism kills it.

Expecting good things to happen will lead to taking actions that produce positive results and vice versa. If one expects bad stuff to come your way, it will keep you from doing the very thing that might have minimised or avoided just that.

It is akin to doing nothing at all, no preparation whatsoever for the eventual. We are then preparing our own failure!

Malaysia is not the only country affected by the currency devaluation or the spiralling down of the stock market. What I find rather intriguing these past few months is the fact that Malaysians, media included, like to focus on the bad news.

We had seen the news on the ringgit devaluation from RM3.6 to what it is today RM4.24 as of Aug 24, 2015.

Of course we cannot push the ringgit up, but rather than spreading negativity that paints a gloomy picture, why don’t we start offering suggestions on how to overcome this?

Stop buying things in US denomination and perhaps halt your travels to countries that trade in US$. There are alternatives if you seek for it!

Coming out of your comfort zone

Often the very thing we need to improve our circumstances requires courage. Closing this gap would require coming out of your comfort zone, doing things that you would not have the courage to do before.

It could be having a conversation with your boss about an issue that’s been upsetting you, attending an interview, or even deciding to move from your comfortable current work place.

Our current political state is one of the many factors that contributed to the falling of the ringgit, and Malaysia is not alone in this.

The currencies devaluation is a result from a slowdown in China which has pushed the Asian markets including Malaysia to fall to a fresh low against the greenback and Singapore dollar.

Indeed the ringgit slammed to a 17-year low at 4.2430 against the US dollar as of Aug 24, 2015, or down more than 17 percent year-to-date, while it hit a fresh low of 3.0019 against the Singapore dollar.

Malaysia is not the only country hit; the Indonesian rupiah, Australian dollar, Thai baht and the euro are also going through the same thing.

Despite the downward trend of the ringgit, fundamentally, the Malaysian economy grew 4.9 percent YoY in 2015, and Bank Negara had mentioned that our economy is still strong.

We have moderate GDP growth, in tandem with most of ASEAN economies, including Singapore (1.8 percent YoY) and Indonesia (4.7 percent YoY), and South Korea (2.2 percent YoY). And, we predict our economy to sustain growth at 5.0 percent in 2016.

Rather than focusing on the ringgit going further and further down, perhaps it is time that we come up with ideas or suggestions on what policies or strategies the government should take this time around?