One point about Gandalf's plan to destroy the One Ring by sending Frodo into Mordor; is that, on the one hand, it had potential to be decisive; while on the other hand it had a very low apparent chance of success.
By comparison there were many other high probability options of improving the situation a bit - but none of these could possibly affect the final outcome of defeat.
Short-termism and common sense was heavily in favour of doing almost anything except sending a Hobbit into Mordor; yet none of these alternatives would - even if they worked, and even in theory - be able to do more than delay the inevitable.
Life's like that - at the microcosm and macrocosm; did we but recognize it.
We could pour our efforts into small, but ultimately insignificant, improvements - or else we could make our best effort to do that one-thing which really has potential to be decisive.
Of course, the first step is to discover that which has potential to be decisive.
And that is something which nobody-else is going to tell you - just as nobody told Gandalf what might possibly be achieved.
And it is something which will seem stupid, reckless, insane - or even evil - to most normal people: to that majority who cannot or will not see farther than whatever ameliorates some current problem.
Once again: you are on your own. Once again: if you don't take responsibility, then the Good Thing will not be done.
But (after you have failed, and as all goes under...) you will have cast-iron excuses why it did not happen, why you did not take the tiny crazy chance of doing-the-right-thing.
(Excuses that everybody will acknowledge as valid.)
With life; it's a matter of what you ultimately take most seriously.
