Look for the Blue Sky June 22, 2026 17:06

LOOK FOR THE BLUE SKY

A small love letter to Auckland, local businesses and finding the blue sky when everything feels a little grey

I don't know about you but to me it feels as though New Zealand has developed a new national hobby.
Not rugby, not complaining about Auckland traffic, not silently judging the person in front of us at the supermarket for putting their groceries on the conveyor belt in a completely illogical order (or is that just me?)
No. Our new national pastime is doom.

The economy is doomed. Its election year...we're doomed!
Retail is doomed, Auckland is doomed, young people are doomed, old people are doomed, the weather is doomed.
And somewhere, probably in Wellington, there is a very expensive report being written confirming that doom itself is also facing difficult trading conditions.

Every conversation seems to begin with, “Things are a bit tough at the moment,” and end twenty minutes later with the distinct impression that we should all go home, draw the curtains and begin stockpiling lentils.

And to be fair, things are a bit tough. 
People are watching what they spend. Businesses are working harder for every dollar, many of us trying to balance rising costs with the need to keep wages in line with inflation. Mortgages, rent, groceries and power bills have all apparently decided they are luxury goods. A casual trip to the supermarket can now feel like attending an auction where you accidentally purchased a capsicum for $14.

There is real pressure out there, and pretending otherwise would be both insensitive and slightly deranged.

But while we wait for things to improve, we have two choices.
We can stare continuously at the grey clouds and discuss, at considerable length, just how grey they are.

Or we can start looking for the blue sky.
Not in an aggressively cheerful, inspirational-quote-over-a-sunset kind of way.
Nobody needs to be told to “choose joy” while standing at the petrol pump.
I mean looking deliberately for what is still good. Because despite the headlines, the bills and the general feeling that the world is being managed by a committee of overtired toddlers, there is still a great deal of good around us.

And quite a lot of it is right here.

We live in a little slice of paradise

But we New Zealanders often have a complicated relationship with New Zealand.
We love it deeply, but we also enjoy talking about it as though it is a failed group project.
We look overseas and imagine that everybody there is living a more sophisticated life. Their public transport works. Their houses are affordable. Their politicians are sensible. Their tomatoes are reasonably priced. Their hair always looks fabulous despite the humidity.

Then you travel there and discover that they are also complaining.
The Australians are complaining about Australia.
The British are complaining about Britain.
The French are complaining professionally, often while eating something magnificent.
The Americans, to be fair, currently have quite a lot to complain about

Everyone thinks someone else has cracked the code.
Meanwhile, we are living in a country with extraordinary beaches, clean air, great food, clever people, incredible creativity and the deeply comforting knowledge that you are rarely more than a few hours from somewhere beautiful.

That does not mean New Zealand is perfect.
Obviously it is not. We still have potholes large enough to have their own ecosystems, and our national approach to housing seems to involve putting a large price tag on something cold and hoping nobody notices the mould.

But it is still our small, strange, beautiful corner of the world.
Perhaps we could talk it up occasionally.
Not in a flag-waving, chest-beating, “we are the greatest nation on earth” sort of way. That would make everyone uncomfortable and probably violate several important Kiwi social conventions.

Just enough to remember that we are lucky to be here.
Tall poppies are actually rather lovely
We also need to discuss our tall poppy problem.
New Zealanders are brilliant at supporting the underdog right up until the underdog becomes successful.

Then we narrow our eyes and ask, “Who do they think they are?”
We like ambition, provided it is presented apologetically.
We like success, provided the successful person describes it as “a bit of a fluke”.
Open a business, create something beautiful, win an award or say out loud that you are proud of yourself, and somewhere a New Zealander will quietly mutter, “They’ve changed.”

Perhaps they have.
Perhaps they have become tired, determined, heavily caffeinated and mildly traumatised by their accountant.
Running a local business takes courage at the best of times. Right now, it occasionally requires the emotional resilience of a bomb-disposal expert.

So instead of reaching for the metaphorical lawnmower whenever somebody grows a little taller, perhaps we could cheer.
Buy the thing they made.
Recommend them.
Leave the good review.
Tell a friend.
Say, “They’re doing something fantastic,” without immediately adding, “Although I heard their marriage is in trouble.”
There is enough room for all the poppies.

Shopping local is more than shopping
Supporting local businesses does not mean you must bankrupt yourself buying artisanal candles and hand-thrown bowls every Saturday.
It simply means remembering that where we spend our money matters.
When you shop locally, the money does not disappear into a distant corporate cloud.
It helps pay a local wage.
It supports somebody’s apprentice.
It keeps a shopfront lit.
It helps a café buy from a local baker, who buys from a local supplier, who employs another local person who then spends their money somewhere else nearby.
It is less of a transaction and more of a small economic conga line.

And local businesses give something back that is difficult to measure on a spreadsheet.
They know your name.
They remember how you like your coffee.
They notice when you have had a hard week.
They squeeze you in before an important event.
They sponsor the school raffle, donate to the fundraiser and put up the lost-dog poster.
They make a neighbourhood feel like a community rather than a collection of buildings with parking problems.

Of course, nobody can shop locally all the time. Sometimes the budget wins. Sometimes convenience wins. Sometimes you need something at 9.47pm and the large international retailer is sitting there on your phone like a very efficient, morally ambiguous genie.

This is not about guilt.
It is about choosing local when we reasonably can.
A coffee. A haircut. A birthday present. Dinner out. A bottle of New Zealand wine. Something made here by somebody who had an idea, took a risk and is now lying awake at 3am wondering whether they ordered too much stock.

Small choices add up.
Kindness is still free
Fortunately, not everything that helps requires money.

Kindness remains remarkably affordable.
It can be as simple as being patient with the new staff member, thanking the person who helped you, checking on a friend or remembering that the person serving you may also be worried about their mortgage, their family, their health or whether they can afford to replace the strange noise their car has started making.

We do not know what everybody is carrying.
Some people carry it beautifully. Some make jokes. Some go quiet. Some become a little snappy in the supermarket when the self-checkout announces there is an “unexpected item in the bagging area” for the eighth time.
The unexpected item is rage, machine. The unexpected item is rage.
A little grace can change the temperature of somebody’s entire day.

Protect your head from the internet
It may also be time to reconsider our relationship with social media.
Social media is very useful for discovering restaurants, looking at puppies and finding out what a person you vaguely knew in 1997 thinks about monetary policy.
Beyond that, it can become a machine designed to convince us that everyone else is richer, happier, thinner, better travelled and currently renovating a kitchen the size of our first home

Then there is the news.
Being informed is important. Checking the news every seven minutes as though the world might suddenly announce it has resolved itself is less useful.
The human brain was not designed to absorb every disaster happening in every country before breakfast.
Sometimes it is perfectly responsible to put down the phone, go outside and look at an actual tree.
The tree will not ask you to like share or subscribe.

Practise extremely ordinary gratitude
Gratitude has acquired an unfortunate reputation.
It can sound like something involving a beige journal, a scented candle and somebody telling you that your financial anxiety would disappear if you appreciated your morning coffee more deeply.
That is not what I mean.
Gratitude does not cancel difficulty.
You can be grateful and worried.
Happy and exhausted.
Hopeful and completely fed up.
Two things can be true at once....I know this because this is my life all the time

Gratitude is simply noticing what has not gone wrong.
The friend who made you laugh.
The client who came back.
The dog who greeted you as though you had returned from war when you had only taken the rubbish out.
The sun appearing after four days of rain.
Clean sheets.
Good hair....hopefully thanks to one of our amazing team
A glass of wine poured by somebody you love.
Nothing monumental. Just the tiny pieces that make an ordinary life feel like yours.

Look up
There is no magic sentence that will fix the economy.
Shopping locally will not solve every problem. Gratitude will not reduce the mortgage. Turning off Instagram will not repair the world.
But we are not powerless either.
We can choose what we pay attention to.
We can support people doing good work.
We can celebrate local success instead of resenting it.
We can be more patient, more generous and slightly less convinced that everybody overseas is having a marvellous time without us.
And while we wait for the clouds to move, we can remember to look up occasionally.
There is nearly always a little blue sky somewhere.
Sometimes you just have to stop discussing the weather long enough to see it.

And if you see me in the salon buried in the doom...remind me to take my own advice and look for the blue sky

x Jennifer

PS to make the sky bluer, click here to get an extra special winter gift to say thank you for your support of the Morgan & Morgan The Hair Collective team