Don't get depressed when the world doesn't get better; the world isn't designed to get better. This world is the place where people come to experience the effects of their ego, fear and hatred. Faced with this mirror we can finally be inspired to give up on these limited ways of being and change to become more loving, more connected, more accepting, tolerant and forgiving.
We, as individuals can gradually get better, and if we all did that together the world would be totally transformed, however, we are all, inevitably, changing at our own pace. We will never all change at the same time and so the world will not transform at one time.
Add into the equation the fact that new, limited and negative individuals are constantly being added to the world and that those few individuals that do become enlightened generally leave this world behind, and you will see that our personal growth is not ever going to change this world, in the sense that the system is as it is and will continue to be that way unless the designers of the system* fundamentally change how things are operating.
Yes, your personal growth will have influence and create ripples of positive change around you and can inspire others to engage and accelerate their own growth towards love and connection, but an individual's growth does not change the system, system designers* change the system, if they choose to do so.
*Here I am referring to beings outside of this reality: the god-like transcendent programmers and engineers, not the worldly leaders. Over-throwing worldly leaders provides no lasting change as the system we are all within has not changed. We cannot over-throw the actual system designers any more than a character in a computer game can reprogram the game they are playing in.
Could this system be designed better? Is it currently an optimal design? Are the results that we see around us, evidence that it is working to produce more loving souls? Are the system designers any more trustworthy and altruistic than those in positions of power inside the system? Are the few who successfully grow into loving and wise beings, evidence that the system is working, or are they an anomaly; have they grown despite the restrictions in place not because of them? Is the purpose of this place for people to change or is it a place to constrain people who don't want to change?