The way forward

I've been a in deep, deep depression these past couple years.
I'm naturally manic-depressive, but I've also been genuinely sad, without an inkling of what I've needed to do in my personal life. I've been lost, and I've lost some friends. Well, I'm still lost, but I'm emerging from my sadness.
I've taken a lot of time to think whilst in my funk. I'd been thinking, "How do we extricate ourselves out of this mess we've placed ourselves? What is the way forward?" I've found no answer. There's no clear path forward. There's no strategy, no long term plan that can really account for every possible setback that will occur.
I suppose that's true of all plans, though. "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
The solution then, I guess, is we need to wing it. Improvise. Get tough, and push forward. Suffer the pains from the blows we will receive, without flinching. Start moving forward to a place we want to be.
We're going to get hurt. We're going to suffer. But we want a better world, right?
We're already suffering the effects of poor governance and weak leadership. What's a few more years worth, so long as we're building toward what we want to happen? We push back against those herding us where we're currently headed. Get tough. Don't worry about getting hurt. We're already hurting.
And I've been telling all of this to myself for my own benefit, trying my best to convince me it's all true. And it is all true. Lying on my back, beaten down, the wind knocked out of me, and I know it all to be true.
Where we're at right now is not somewhere we should be. We're in the wrong, absolutely. We're lost and suffering. We cannot be here, any longer. We need to back track to where we should've been decades ago, and then sprint toward where we need to be. It's our only chance. Otherwise, we're doomed.
We need to change, right now.