Picture yourself in your elementary school classroom while you had to sort out numbers and equations thinking, “When will I ever need to use this?” In reality, those hours you put into math were training your brain like a muscle.

So why don’t we all take a minute for a quick mental workout? Have a look at the equation above. Are you thinking? Pondering? Working it out? Have you grabbed a pen and paper yet? Good.

Like your strict teacher told you as a kid, math is actually essential in daily life. It’s not just about the algebra and trigonometry you might need at an advanced level for engineering jobs, it’s not even the simple addition and subtraction you use at the grocery store. Math actually encourages problem-solving skills because you go through each phase of approaching a problem step-by-step.

So for the equation above, you are flexing your muscle by approaching it, breaking it down, and coming to your solution using logic. By the way, if your solution is 6 then you have been successful. Here is one way to arrive at 6. The hint is to not forget the order of operations: PEMDAS.

First — P for parentheses. The operation 1+1 gives us 2. Then, multiplication. That means 12 x 2 which equals 24. Next, it’s subtraction. If you subtract 24 from 30 you get 6.