is the impossible impossible?

From the introduction to The Impossible Will Take A Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear --

We live in a time fraught with uncertainty and risk: From terrorist threats, pre-emptive wars, and high-level corporate crime, to skyrocketing health care costs, mounting national debt, and an economy that appears rigged for the benefit of the greedy and ruthless, the world can at times seem overwhelming, beyond our control...How difficult it is, though, to address such looming realities as weather gone haywire or a faltering economy when the day-to-day demands of job and family require so much of our attention. Merely thinking about them is to flirt with despair.

And no one is immune, not even those whose occupations or interests directly involve helping others or bringing about constructive social change...Almost everywhere I've encountered people who question whether their actions really matter, whether it's worthwhile to continue making the effort...But as understandable as such moments of doubt and apparent impotence may be, especially in a culture that too often rewards cynicism and mocks idealism, they aren't inevitable. If tackling critical common problems seems a fool's errand, it's only because we're looking at life through too narrow of a lens. History shows that the proverbial rock can be rolled, if not to the top of the mountain, then at least to successive plateaus.