Middle school history teachers told me when I was just a teenager to “be independent early, step out into the world, and engage with society.”

For over thirty years, Khamenei has been the absolute political and spiritual center of Iran and the entire Middle East resistance front. Now, with his sudden death in this joint US-Israel airstrike, it’s a bit like the Sarajevo incident that triggered World War I—the moment when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.
The Sarajevo incident triggered World War I because the rigid military alliance system amplified a local crisis countless times; meanwhile, strategic misjudgments and militarist thinking by major powers led them to arrogantly believe that the war could be contained within a few months. As a result, once the dominoes fell, the massive war machinery roared to life, and no one could stop it.
If you don’t start building strength early, by the time the world order is in turmoil, a young person just stepping into society is like a small boat caught in a giant wave. In such a great era, personal freedom of choice will first be stripped away by the pressure to survive (literally, to stay alive safely), and you’ll only be pushed along—what kind of life can you even hope for then?