And can use it to do nearly anything

I stepped onto the stage and walked down the path to the podium. This was the biggest speaking event of my life. Two thousand people were waiting for me to start talking.

Most graduation speeches are forgettable. A select few get remembered for more than a couple minutes after they are delivered. I wanted to say something that stuck with my friends and their families forever.

A month before this moment, when I was writing and planning what I was going to say, I asked my dad for his advice. I already had an outline, filled with jokes and stories.

I asked my dad what he thought of the stories — and some of the jokes (I couldn’t reveal the best jokes). He listened quietly. Then, he spoke.

My dad gave me something for the speech that still sticks with me today. He told me that every student graduating has a gift, and it is a gift that most people take for granted.

It is the most valuable thing you could have learned in school.

And most people waste it.

Wasted Gifts

It seems tragic when someone receives a gift but then never uses it. It is a waste of the gift-giver’s time and energy.

It is similarly unfortunate when we have an ability that we never use — especially when the ability is so valuable.

My dad asked me a few questions, as he was about to suggest what to add to my speech:

Imagine if you could acquire an ability that could allow you to do nearly anything you want to do. Would you use this skill? Would you be grateful for it? Or would you ignore the gift you were given, and waste it?

Everyone Reading This Has The Skill

My dad reminded me of a basic skill that everyone had in my high school graduating class. It was so basic that I had taken it for granted. And I guessed that everyone else had as well.

We were taught to read.

We often dismiss our ability to read. It is so easy to overlook the simple skill that most of us learn at a young age.

Reading allows us to function in society. It helps when we drive, watch television, and post online.

Reading is the foundational skill. It’s how we communicate. It is how we can access the thoughts, lives, and feelings of people we will never meet. Reading allows anyone to become nearly immortal — words can outlast any person. I can write to my children, and they will be able to read my letters fifty years from now.

We can study the words of someone from 2,000 years ago, and our lives can be transformed. Reading creates a conduit from a single mind to every other person who has lived and who can read.

I am not naive enough to believe that everyone who graduates knows how to read. Sadly, there are many who don’t. Maybe there were some in my graduating class as well.

But I do know that many of us who do know how to read can dismiss the skill.

It is so basic. It is so simple. But once you learn how to read, you can learn nearly anything.

That’s what my dad taught me. And then he explained a little more.

Reading is the basis for becoming educated. And an educated person, he said, is someone who can acquire what he wants without violating the rights of others.

It all starts, though, with the skill that most take for granted. It starts with the skill that someone must give to us. Someone has to actually teach us how to read.

Never Take the Gift for Granted

In a recent film adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes is imprisoned because he cannot read the contents of a letter from Napoleon to one of his loyalists. And in a touching moment, Edmond Dantes refuses to help Abbé Faria escape from prison until Faria offers to teach him how to read and become a learned man.

We can never underestimate how much of a gift this simple skill is — we can never take for granted our ability to read.

We can access lives across the globe and through past centuries. We can live in distant lands and have conversations with humble leaders and giants of history. We can relive private moments that affected millions of people. We can do all of these things because we can read — and because someone taught us to read.

But as Mark Twain observed, there isn’t much difference between someone who can’t read, and someone who doesn’t read.

Don’t overlook the gift.

. . .

Learn the one lesson that has changed my life more than any other.