Let's love this using the equation
7x + 9 = 8x + 2
1) We want to only have x on one side of the equation, so we subtract 7x from both sides
7x - 7x + 9 = 8x - 7x + 2
9 = x + 2
2) Since we want to get x alone, we need to get rid of the 2. To do this, we subtract 2 from both sides
9 - 2 = x + 2 - 2
7 = x
Therefore, x = 7.