January is a traditional time for setting goals for the year and reviewing our longer-term plans. If you’re a swimmer, these might involve swimming. Maybe you want to swim faster or complete a particular swim. You dutifully write down the goal and create a plan to work towards it.
You might then watch the news and, perhaps, feel despair about the state of the world. While we’re destroying our planet and wars rage around us, trying to swim a little faster seems trivial. Nobody cares and it won’t make any difference to anyone but you (and it might not make much difference to you either).