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There is a collection of passages translated into English from the various letters written by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov called "Harbor For Our Hope: On Acquiring Peace Amidst Suffering."  Most of what he has written remains in Russian, but his works are slowly being translated and published in English.  I think the following passage is very good advice and provides a helpful perspective to find peace in a world overflowing with suffering.  Here's the passage:

Do not peer into life's circumstances too much: they are not worth it.  They rush by, changing one after another.  [...] And we also are hastening to the edge of eternity!  Those who stare at these circumstances and consider them unmoving may easily fall into despondency.  Whoever sees that everything is hurtling through time, and that he himself is flying, will find things easier to bear and discovers joy in his heart.

Note he is not saying that we should never look into life's circumstances.  Of course it is appropriate to look into and consider life's circumstances.  This is how we can learn what to do to help, what we can do to make things better--or if anything at all can be done to make a situation better.  However, we should "not peer into life's circumstances too much."  

The problem with peering too much into life's circumstances is that generally we can only do very little about them, and, most significantly, they are always changing.  Economies change, people change, politics change, the rules of the game change.  Life changes.  God does not change.  

We are flying through time, St. Ignatius tells us.  We are hurtling toward eternity.  The problems, the insults, the injustices and the inanities of this moment will not be here for long.  They will pass and new problems will arise.  What little time we have is precious.  Invest it in what lasts forever: acquire the peace that is from above.  Jesus put it this way: "Don't labour for the food that parishes, but for the food that endures into eternal life" (John 6:27).

In this world we have tribulation, Jesus tells us.  Compassion compels us to attend a little to the circumstances of this life so that we can love and care for those around us.  However, too much focus on the circumstances of life leads to depression or distraction or delusion.  When we find ourselves suffering from these spiritual maladies, it may be that we are "peering" too much into the circumstances of life in the world.  It may mean that it is time for a recalibration of what is important, what is eternal.  

Every circumstance in this world changes.  Every problem and challenge and injustice flys by.  We too are flying through time toward eternity.  Let's not neglect what is eternal to attend too much to what will change soon anyway.