Rainn Wilson spoke at the University of Southern California's Baccalaureate ceremony Thursday, a day before commencement, where the actor joked about the piece of paper students were about to get.
"Tomorrow you graduates will be receiving a piece of paper -- one of the most important pieces of paper you will ever get," said Wilson, best-known as Dwight from "The Office" on NBC. "And trust me, if there’s one thing I know a lot about, it’s paper."
Wilson also founded the website SoulPancake.com, which explores spirituality and "big think" topics, and he offered some thoughts on happiness for the soon-to-be graduates.
"Happiness is so fleeting -- it’s like cotton candy," Wilson said. "It looks amazing, delightful, fluffy and pink. You joyously eat it and almost immediately regret your decision. Your fingers are sticky, you're undergoing an insulin crash from the half-pound of sugar you just sucked down, and you're hungry again almost immediately."
But Wilson had a warning on how to find that happiness: "In this me-me-me culture, focus on yourself [and you will] find only misery, depression, emptiness. Focus on helping others [and you will find] joy, contentment, gratitude and buckets and buckets of eudaimonia."
It seems like in this case, Wilson enjoyed spending some time talking to students: