Now I don't mean that there isn't any focus. There is actually a lot of focus, but it does seem to be off target for a good deal of the time.
Also it's not that what the target becomes is not 'important' it's more that with all that is going on at anyone time it does seem that we do spend a disproportionate amount of time, energy, media and political effort pursuing issues that are at on the extreme ends of the bell curve of 'stuff what we really should fix'.
To run a successful company there are fundamentals that are pretty much accepted as necessary. You need a goal and a set of succinct and defined objectives designed get you there. It is the task of management to ensure that the workforce remains focused on those objectives and that resources are assigned to those objectives to keep the company on its critical path toward its established and accepted goal.
Two examples of this lack of focus.
Personal goals. I don't think that individuals put enough thought in to how they are going to achieve their goals. Sometimes it is just a case of prioritising the wrong objectives that are really just not that important. Maybe just whining about life being unfair rather than just using that energy on just pulling your finger out? There was a parent interviewed on the BBC the other day about her struggle to feed the child sitting next to her because of the current crisis. The irony being that the difference in relative mass of the child and parent was probably causing the poor kid to orbit the parent like a trapped moon.
Politics. It does appear that so much of political debate and the resources allocated are around issues that are so far from the critical path that would benefit us all as to indicate a massive level of incompetence. If the country (actually not just this one, we're not alone on having dysfunctional leadership), was a company it would be unable to return a dividend to its shareholders, it would rapidly fail.
The responsibility for this must rest with the management. At. a personal/family level we should all take more of a grip of our own objectives, avoid wasting resources. At the level of politics and international relations there needs to be a far clearer; statement of goals, definition of objectives, and an understanding of how resources must be allocated within the time frame of the critical path that we want to follow to get there.
Without a great deal more focus we will continue to be frustrated by our lack of progress.