Do we choose our emotions...or do they choose us?

Question

Do we choose our emotions...or do they choose us?

Answer 1

Your present emotions are a feedback of what you project in the future.

Answer 2

As creatures of habit, we most often react to situations.  To every action there is an equal or opposite reaction.  We do choose our emotions, if we react.  If we know that our life is a challenge and face it with an open heart and an open mind we can choose our emotion☆

Answer 3

outside forces motivates our emotion....it is upon us how to control that emotion...

Answer 4

To consciously control one's emotions is exceedingly difficult. Very few people are able to do this.  The vast majority are at the mercy of their emotions from moment to moment.

Answer 5

I believe it's neither. Emotions are more of an instinct, so we are not chosen by emotions, nor are we capable of controlling them 100%.  

Answer 6

yes very few people are able to do that indeed...

a person who can control thier emotions has character....

emotions are fickle and change constantly.

can you even remember how you felt 3 days ago?

probably not.

i mean how can you let something that you cant even remember how it was 3 days ago control what you gonna do now?

emotions are very important, but as proper humans we should be the master of our feelings not be enslaved to thier every whim.

somebody who cannot control thier emotions can very rarely achieve something in thier life, and can very rarely give to others. a person who cannot control thier emotions is only a good friend when THEY are happy and will crumble under stress.

Answer 7

We don't choose our emotions, but we can choose how to act upon them.

We can fight them back, or ignore them, but they are still there.  The whole point of an emotion is for it to be an instinctive psychological reaction to an internal or external stimulus.  If we could pick and choose whatever kind of feeling we wanted at a given time, what would be the point of experiencing anything at all?

Answer 8

I believe it's actually both and neither.

What are emotions? well thats too complex to answer as it is a multilayered phenomenon crossing different aspects of our existence.

Irregardless of how you view emotions, though, they are a product of our past conditioning, actions, decisions, and thoughts..  So they are automatic in that sense. Emotions come up, we can act out on them, or try to suppress them, or anything in between, but the fact reamins they come up for us, and they are a subjective phenomena. There are similarities betwwen people for similar external events, yet a wide range of differeneces as well.  In that sense you could say they 'choose us' yet they are programmed into us in another sense by oru past. In that sense, in a way we chosse them ourselves by our past experience, etc. When I say neither, its really the word 'choose' that I am objecting to, because while the handling of emotions may well be a conscious choice, the working of them are subconscious.

Answer 9

I don't feel that we can choose our emotions.

Our emotions are a reaction to outside stimuli!