Our world is not the best of all possible worlds. Attempts to change it seem always doomed to fail. It appears that another, better world is almost impossible. What can we do? In the past, narratives of progress from the philosophy of history provided refuge. They promised improvement; today, they have lost their persuasive power. The claim to create something new and the peculiar nature of the given, which remains in the status quo, seem to stand in irreconcilable opposition. We can overcome this paralyzing confrontation by analyzing transformative action and the given situation using the concept of repetition. The analysis of Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard shows that repetition can be divided into two aspects: first, a liberating repetition that has the potential to undermine and decompose existing orders.