• By Daniel Robledo

💖 The Tech Event That Made Me Rethink Emotions

read time: 04 minutes

Welcome back to The Checkpoint, a newsletter where, every Monday, we pause, reflect, and level up our lives.

☑️ Today's Summary:

• I share a personal moment of frustration with social awkwardness.
• A powerful metaphor to better understand emotions.
• Practical techniques to channel your feelings into positive action.

⚡ Understanding Feelings As Energy

Hey Reader!

I’m gonna be honest—these past couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling pretty frustrated.

As you might remember, I’m currently pivoting from game programming to full-stack development. One of the goals I set for myself was to attend 12 tech events in the next 3 months (averaging one event per week).

On top of that, I’ve started volunteering, which means I’ve been facing a lot more social interaction than I’m used to.

And look, I don’t consider myself shy, but I still get mad at myself when I go to a new event and can't even manage a bit of small talk. It’s like my brain short-circuits and I just freeze.

Here’s the thing though—I’ve realized a cool trick for managing these moments: channeling anger into action.

I know, I know… sounds super cliché. But hear me out.

We don’t have control over what we feel. It’s totally natural to be frustrated when you don’t follow through on something you set out to do (like me, not approaching people at events).

But what we do control is what we do with those feelings.

So instead of seeing emotions as random biochemical reactions, I’ve started to think of them more like energy.

If you’ve seen any Kurzgesagt video, you know that energy can’t be created or destroyed—it just changes form. I think emotions work in the same way.

For example, on the way home from an event, I’ll start feeling angry or disappointed:
"I didn’t talk to that person."
"I wasn’t really present in that conversation."

Boom—energy. Generated. Stored.

So the real challenge becomes: how can I consciously redirect that emotional energy into something useful?

Here are a few ways I’ve been doing it:

• Messaging someone I saw at the event
• Watching a video on handling social awkwardness
• Forgiving myself and just trying to do better next time 😊

But I’m sharing this with you not just because I shamelessly use this newsletter as a public journal (which I do), but because this concept applies to every aspect of life:

• Channel sadness to explore past wounds
• Channel disgust to confront your shadow
• Channel fear to discover your next right step

So yeah, maybe the biggest takeaway is this:
​Feelings are energy. Learn to channel them.

(Just like Zuko redirecting Ozai’s lightning—if you know, you know.)

✍️ Week's Quote

“ Open your heart to it. — Kratos

❤️ Favorites Of The Week

👀 Website Update

I’ve recently revamped my personal website to make it feel more me and showcase my latest work. I would love to hear your thoughts if you could give it a peek! Learn more

Thank you for being here every week, Reader.Talk to you soon <3