The most difficult emotion to control

Regret. It's not on the list though. Don't you regret that :)

Originally Posted by Staffan

Regret. It's not on the list though. Don't you regret that :)

No I don't regret it.
Is regret even an emotion? I think it is more of a state of mind that could lead to an emotion. Most probably Sadness or Anger

i like this poll

i would probably have to say embarrassment, anger being close behind though.

Originally Posted by Desolan

No I don't regret it.
Is regret even an emotion? I think it is more of a state of mind that could lead to an emotion. Most probably Sadness or Anger

A matter of definition I guess. There is of course another situational component which isn't emotional per se. But the feeling, although related to both frustration, anger and sadness, is quite unique.

Er, it's a tie between happiness and sadness. These are two things that I sometimes love about myself and sometimes hate. People in my school tend to see me as either a spaz or a cry baby because of these qualities. However that's not necessarily true. I believe that being happy is one of the reasons we're on this earth so I seek out happiness and find it often. When I do find it, I am happy to be happy, which doubles the happiness which makes it even harder to control. It is the same thing, but in the reverse, with sadness. I can usually control emotions like anger, fear, desire, and embarrassment, but sadness is just a completely separate thing for me. When I feel that someone I respect disproves of me, I cry and when I feel like I've hurt someone that I respect I cry more. I cry when I read about horrible things going on in places miles from myself and when I think about my friends' problems. I like to act like I have thick skin, but it's definitely not true when it comes to innocent people being hurt or my hurting people or my being hurt by people I respect.

Happiness for me. I can control every emotion except for laughter, it's very easy to make me smile. Maybe because I don't want to control it, so I never got to learn how.

fear and anger

Sadness. I can keep my anger private and I don't have a problem laughing out loud for no apparent reason but I really hate crying in front of people. I'm not sure why that is but yeah, definitely sadness.

I can count the number of emotional outbursts I've had in my life on one hand. Only one of them happened in public and that was anger. Embarrassment is the emotion I find the most challenging to deal with though.

Having given this all of about 5 minutes of thought, my completely undeveloped theory is that emotions can be described as either primary or secondary. Things like anger, desire, sadness and fear are primary, whereas things like embarrassment or jealousy are secondary. Secondary emotions are usually a blend of two or more primary emotions, thus making them more challenging to control.

Happiness by far, though I have no desire to control it either. I've made a fool of myself being happy on many occasions but I didn't really mind...because I was happy.