The Last Thought You'll Ever Have

[Music] On June 3rd 1982 at 2:05 p.m. a girl named Nia was thought of for the very first time she had no body no brain and no name she was nothing more than a faint red line on a pregnancy test a symbol of a potential person On January 22nd 1983 after it was determined that she was a girl her parents decided what to name her and Nia was officially thought of for the first time with the name Nia about three months later Nia was seen for the very first time without a screen awoken to the stark light of the hospital delivery room Nia had no idea where she was or who she was she was for this one brief fleeting moment a completely blank slate nobody and somebody at the same time free to be whoever she could on June 1st 1988 Nia was thought of as a friend for the first time after her mother's friend's daughter Sarah asked Nia if she liked the TV show Danger Mouse Nia said yes even though she didn't know what Sarah was talking about being five years old and the ADATA was better to say yes and not seem different Sarah liked Nia because of this and they hung out every week and watched the show together Nia didn't really like the show she liked that sarah liked her though so she never said anything on March 9th 1991 Nia was thought of as annoying and weird for the first time after dancing by herself during second-grade recess a group of her classmates mocked her and one girl told her that she was weird Nia didn't dance again for several years on October 14th 1994 Nia was thought of as attractive for the first time after a boy named Sam met her at school and like the way her hair looked on one of the rare days that Nia Ward down he told Nia that he liked her and thought her hair was pretty Nia wore her hair down almost every day after even though she kind of liked it more in a ponytail on August 16th 1997 Nia was hated for the first time after breaking up with her first real boyfriend Tim Tim told Nia she was a horrible inconsiderate person who only cared about herself Nia worried that maybe he was right and got back together with them to prove that he wasn't not long after getting back together Tim broke up with Nia on June 29th 2005 Nia was thought of as a full-time employee for the first time after being hired as a financial analyst at a large media company it seemed to make her dad really happy when she first considered Business and Finance as a major in college so she stuck with it hoping it would continue to impress him and other people she knew and might know in the future she never really came around to liking it herself on April 10th 2012 Nia was thought of for the first time as a wife after marrying her 7th boyfriend James she wasn't sure if she was ready when James proposed but didn't want to hurt him deeply feared the possibility of being thought of as old and alone especially after her mother repeatedly hinted at the idea on October 22nd 2016 Nia was thought of as a mother for the first time as her firstborn child Katie uttered the word mom as she looked up at new Katie knew nothing about Nia yet but saw the source of all comfort and safety and love in his eyes on December 8th 2019 Nia was thought of as a boss for the first time after being promoted to corporate financial manager at a major multinational clothing corporation Nia wasn't sure if she wanted the position and hated the idea of bossing people around but she wanted her parents and friends and strangers she might talk with to think of her as a success moreover she wanted her legacy to have some significance for her children and her children's children to look back at her and think of her as someone who was someone someone who was important she took a job and stayed in it for the rest of her career during her time she helped make some of the largest acquisitions and mergers in the company's history helping it reach a new height in the industry and popular culture this made me a quite wealthy and sought-after she hated what the expectations made her become though she became somewhat cold and forceful to her employees and hyper focused on money and work giving up almost all of her free time and things for herself outside of work on August 22nd 2035 Nia was thought of in a way that somewhat resembled the way Nia thought of herself for the first time one year earlier Nia was diagnosed with the disease known as cystic fibrosis in an unusual rare case of a late stage diagnosis the doctor told Nia she potentially only had a year or two left as time passed Nia began to care less and less about everything she began to uncover and reveal her deeply withheld insecurities and years in character traits as they began to fill with the air of insignificance and triviality while in the hospital during one of the last few coherent conversations she ever had she told her husband James that she never truly felt like herself around him or anyone for that matter that she had spent most of her life accommodating other people's perceptions of her as if her concern was always about how she was experienced in the minds of others and never about how she was experienced in her own how she wanted so badly to be liked and remembered by everyone as competent and beautiful and agreeable and happy and perfect and successful and now she was about to die without ever really being known by anyone at all as nia revealed more and more to James for a brief moment for the first time in her whole life Nia was thought of in the same way she was thinking of herself synchronized perfectly inside her and James's mind in this moment of unexceptional naked candor James in Nia felt the love and boundlessness unlike anything they had ever before in Everwood thereafter three months later Nia was thought of for the first time as someone who was dead everyone she knew attended her funeral some of her closest friends and family members set incredible things about her at the service how beautiful she was how sweet and kind she was to everyone how hard-working and successful she was a couple people secretly thought about how they didn't really like her or care about her all that much and just one of the service to be over so they could go home Nia didn't know what anyone thought or said she was dead on March 5th 2051 Nia was Dada for the first time as a grandma her second child Nick showed his first son Tyler a photo of Nia in a family photo album this was my mom Nick told Tyler as he pointed to her photo she would be your grandma can you say grandma Tyler just four years old looked at the photo and let out a soft my grandma leaving out a letter or two but understanding what he meant the wrinkles in Nia's face in the photo made Tyler laugh a little then Nick flipped the page to a different photo of someone else on December 30th 21:07 Nia was thought of for the last time by someone who ever personally knew as Katie Nia's last surviving child died the last clear real memory of Nia dissolved with Katie's mind On January 2nd 2372 at 350 2 p.m. Nia was thought of for the last time ever her only remaining photos and information held in a data server at an ancestry company for people to learn about their family heritage a young man named saunas employed by the company was instructed that day to clear out all data servers containing unused full profiles more than 200 years old before deleting them saunas looked through some of the profiles as he looked at the photos he wondered who the people were he wondered what life must have been like for them he stopped on one particular photo it was Nia he thought she looked really friendly and happy she had a smile that seemed completely genuine as if she spent her whole life practicing it then he toggled to the next profile within the hour saunas had cleared the server with one delete key all traces of Nia were gone forever later that night while trying to fall asleep saunas wondered without thinking about anyone specific if any of the people that he deleted would have lived differently if they thought about the fact that one day they wouldn't be thought about at all this thought sent a strange sensation down saunas his entire body then he thought about his big presentation at work he had in two days that he had been cripplingly worried about for the last month he suddenly wasn't that nervous about it he felt a little moment of freedom and peace then he fell asleep [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

Views: 1,239,876

Rating: 4.9552164 out of 5

Keywords: pursuit of wonder, the last thought you'll ever have, worrying, worried, happy, happiness, short, story, animation, animated, film, school of life, the self, self realization, exurb1a, ted, ted ed, aperture, shots of awe, motivation, motivated, inspiring, inspiration, sad, how to, how to be, care less, what other people think, the last time you'll be thought about, thinking, consciousness

Id: CEpFVz5vVVM

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/AsakalaSoul]

makes me wonder what I was thought of as. not just by friends, family and people who know me but also strangers passing by

[u/polyaudiophile]

Literal chills! And that strange feeling he had at the end!

[u/shakermaker404]

Makes me anxious, it's not easy to live a life true to oneself even if one intends to.

[u/GoodniteMush]

I like this a lot. Who is the narrator? It sounds like Dave Foley to me.

[u/DRmann13]

Wow