Jak Hurwitz - Contributor
Dec. 24th, 2025

Let’s cut to the chase,we all have issues. Let it be personal or academic, anxiety, depression, stress. But how many of us, in all honesty, have been able to uncover what is really causing us these emotions we feel towards those problems?

We are all in a stage where we are trying to find ourselves, what makes us who we are. We try sports, classes, AP’s, and more. But even after finding something we enjoy, there is still a small sensation of emptiness, as if our own brains are telling us that what we found was not enough to cover up the issues we are experiencing. 

The brain at our age is constantly growing. Feeding off information, experiences, relationships and so much more. But of course, brain growth comes at a cost: problems. So many problems. All of the negative experiences that nourish our brain gives us the opportunity to learn how to deal with a similar problem again. But in the process, it hurts to live through them. So what does our brain do to overcome the pain?

It tries to distract itself by  finding a new sport or new friends or just something to make us forget about all that pain. As teenagers, some of us struggle to express our feelings. We are so busy focusing on what we can see around us that we forget to process and understand our emotions.  But at the end of the day, as much as taking action to distract ourselves from our previous or current emotional pain is important, it is also crucial to be verbal to ourselves and to others who could help us.

Acknowledging your problems to find the root cause of  your pain is critical to alleviating it. You will most likely  learn a lot about yourself in the process, if that’s understanding yourself better, finding the root cause of your distress, or discovering something completely different. 

However, this does not mean you should stop trying to distract yourself from your problems, rather take a second to stop everything you're doing, breathe, and brainstorm the root of this issue before distracting yourself from it. 

Acknowledge, talk, distract and repeat. Those are the steps that you should follow to achieve not only satisfaction, but emotional growth and awareness every time another issue comes your way.