Drifting Through the General Assembly

For those of us in the international development world, September has always carried a familiar rhythm. As the United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York, the global system seems to contract into one city block in mid-town Manhattan, where leaders, advocates, practitioners, and multilateral institutions gather to take stock of the world’s progress and failures.

The General Assembly is a barometer of global will and many of us have treated ‘UNGA week’ as a professional anchor. A chance to listen, to influence, to reconnect with the larger mission that brought us into this field. A reminder that despite its flaws, the wheels of global cooperation were still turning.

But the personal reflections it brought me this year, begin in a very different place. A moment of unexpected detachment became a radical lens and view towards a broader phenomenon affecting our sector: the creeping sense of fatigue and disengagement that has settled in after years of navigating crises that seems to outpace solutions.

A Year of Unexpected Detachment

For years, the United Nations General Assembly was my personal Super Bowl. I watched live streams religiously, tuned into WebTV panels as if they were prestige drama, and when I lived in New York, I attended sessions and side events vigorously. It was my annual ritual to witness something truly important. The General Assembly, at its best, used to feel like a global festival of ideas. Crowded, hopeful, flawed, but charged with possibility.

But this year, the ritual went very differently.

I wasn’t in a conference room. I wasn’t taking notes.

I was asleep. On my parents’ sofa. Pregnant, horizontal, blissfully unconscious.

And then a highlights section on the national news channel slowly woke me up.… it took me a few disoriented beats to realise what was happening and longer still to realise how it had all slipped past me without notice.

Sure, “pregnancy brain” is a convenient excuse. But the truth is that my attention has drifted long before that nap.

And that state of detachment got me thinking of an unrelated conversation that shed new light on it entirely.

The Iceberg of Apathy

During a recent catch up with my friend Chris, a trained cold-water rescue responder, he had explained the actual stages a person goes through when they fall into icy water. According to rescue medicine, cold-water immersion unfolds in four stages.

First comes cold shock: an involuntary gasp, rapid breathing, disorientation, and sheer panic as the body tries to make sense of the sudden drop in temperature. Then, cold-water incapacitation sets in. Muscles and nerves cool so quickly that strength and coordination evaporate, making even basic movement difficult. If rescue takes longer, hypothermia begins: core temperature drops, thinking becomes muddled, consciousness slips, and the body quietly focuses on survival rather than struggle. And finally, even after being pulled from the water, there is the risk of post-immersion collapse, when dramatic shifts in circulation can overwhelm the heart.

What Chris contemplated, is how closely this physiological journey mirrors so many of our psychological responses to current global crises. Not literally, but symbolically.

We’ve lived through the equivalent of collective cold shock for decades - panic, confusion, shouting for solutions. Then came the frustration, the thrashing, the desperate attempt to swim harder when our strength was already fading. Now, many of us seem caught somewhere between exhaustion and numbness, drifting between awareness and detachment. And while that final stage resignation is dangerous in the water, it feels equally perilous in civic life.

The resemblance is enough to make me wonder whether what we’re calling “apathy” is really just a sign of how long we’ve been treading cold water without a solid place to climb out. We had the panic. We had the outrage. Now, many of us are drifting. A kind of civic hypothermia.

As I reflect on this year’s General Assembly and my own experience of drifting through it, I’m reminded that apathy might not arise from a place of true disinterest. It’s born of fatigue, frustration, and the overwhelming nature of crises that seem beyond our control.

The world’s challenges - be they political, environmental, social or economic - demand engagement, yes, but they also require innovation, resilience, and the willingness to adapt. That’s where growing and expanding sustainably becomes so critical. Much like global platforms that risks stagnation if left unchecked, businesses today must adapt, evolve, and sustain their growth in an ever-changing landscape.

Moving from Drift to Direction

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the size of the problems around us, but change happens one step at a time. The key is to engage with the process, not retreat from it. In the same way that we can no longer afford to sleep through the world’s crises, we can no longer afford to sit idly by in business, because every moment wasted in apathy is an opportunity lost.

So, as you reflect on your own role in these global conversations, whether in business or in life, I invite you to think of it as a moment to evaluate how and why, we should continue to contribute meaningfully. And just like a survivor trapped in icy water can regain the strength to break through the surface, so too can we, collectively and individually, break free from the numbness that often sets in during times of uncertainty.

Because survival is rarely just about heroic lunges.

Most of the time, it’s about flowing with the currents rather than fighting against it, regain strength, and get out of that mess before someone needs to pull you by the collar.