We often think of legacy as something others will say about us when we are gone, a summing up of our life’s meaning. But as I enter my own next chapter, after an established career, I have come to realise that legacy is not only about endings. It is about beginnings. It is not what we leave behind when we are gone, it is what we design and live with intention while we are still here.
Legacy is not the last chapter. It is an ongoing act of design.
1. Legacy as Design, Not Default
As societies move into the age of the 100-year life, we talk a lot about health, finances, and work. But there comes a point where the deeper question surfaces: What will I leave behind?
The Operational Aspects of Legacy
While legacy is deeply personal and value-driven, it also has a very practical side. Getting life’s administrative affairs in order is one of the greatest gifts we can leave to our loved ones. Without it, even the most well-meaning families can face unnecessary stress, conflict, or confusion.
Yet to do this well, we must first take away the taboo around talking about death. Conversations about end-of-life preferences, advance care plans, and lasting powers of attorney should not be seen as morbid, but as acts of love and clarity. By normalising these discussions, we give ourselves and our families the chance to approach the final chapters of life with the same intentionality and grace that we apply to every other important decision.
The Ministry of Health in Singapore has taken important steps to simplify this. In August 2025, it launched MyACP (Advance Care Planning), a free online tool that allows individuals to record their end-of-life care preferences digitally and securely. This ensures that, should the time come, families and healthcare providers know our wishes without ambiguity.
In parallel, the government’s My Legacy Vault acts as a one-stop portal for end-of-life planning. It allows us to store key documents and preferences, wills, Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) appointments, Central Provident Fund (CPF) nominations (Singapore’s national retirement savings scheme), and even funeral instructions, in one secure, accessible location. Together, these tools mean that legacy is no longer scattered across files, lawyers’ offices, and fragmented conversations. It can be consolidated, simplified, and made accessible.
On a personal note, I have completed both my LPA (Lasting Power of Attorney) and ACP (Advance Care Planning) online, and I found the process remarkably user-friendly. It gave me peace of mind and I know it will make things easier for my loved ones should the need ever arise. These are not easy conversations to have, but I strongly encourage readers to take these steps early. Doing so is not just about protecting your wishes, it is about sparing your loved ones the administrative burden and emotional pain of making decisions in the dark.
Seen through the lens of the LIVeD framework, this is about agency even in legacy. Just as agency in health, income, and work allows us to live on our own terms, so too does thoughtful end-of-life planning allow us to leave on our own terms. It ensures that our values, preferences and care for loved ones continue to guide decisions when we no longer can.
Recent findings in The Business Times highlight a pressing gap in Singapore: most citizens are unprepared and underinsured for long-term care. A Singlife white paper notes that more than half of those over 65 will likely need some form of long-term care, yet only one in three have insurance cover, and many underestimate the true costs. This reinforces the operational dimension of legacy: financial preparedness is not just about sustaining ourselves, but about ensuring continuity of care, dignity, and security for our families. Without this, even the best intentions can collapse under the weight of unexpected realities, a theme I explored in greater depth in Part 2: Income & Financial Wellness of the LIVeD series.
This broader rethinking is also surfacing in how wealth itself is transferred. The Business Times recently noted that Asia is entering the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history, and families are discovering that legacy is no longer simply a legal exercise of wills and estates. Instead, it is becoming a cultural and strategic endeavour that must bridge generational differences in values and expectations. Where the baby-boomer generation often emphasised security, preservation, and control, younger generations are prioritising purpose, sustainability and impact. Wealth managers, family offices, and private banks are increasingly being asked not only to manage numbers but also to serve as educators and translators helping families align financial continuity with values and intergenerational dialogue. In this sense, legacy planning is not just about protecting assets, but about designing stewardship that can adapt to new contexts and new priorities.
2. Learning from Exemplars of Purposeful Longevity
The late Henry Kissinger offers a powerful reminder that relevance need not fade with age. At 99, with his intellect undimmed, he co-authored Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit. At a stage when many might have stepped back, he chose instead to reflect, guide, and contribute to the great questions of our time. His example shows that legacy is not measured only after we are gone, but by how long we continue to live with purpose and shape the world around us.
This spirit of renewal is echoed in the arts. At 73, British singer Sting described himself as an “eternal student,” noting that every collaboration whether with hip-hop artists, pop icons, or jazz musicians offers a chance to learn afresh. Despite more than five decades of global acclaim, he views his work not as repetition but as continual reinvention. His posture of curiosity and growth reminds us that legacy is not frozen at the peak of one’s career, but evolves through openness to learn and create at every stage of life.
Closer to home, Singapore’s Lim Tze Peng, a Cultural Medallion recipient, exemplifies how creativity can thrive into extreme longevity. Continuing to paint well past the age of 100, his works stand not only as personal achievements but as cultural treasures, preserving heritage while inspiring younger generations.
In the political sphere, Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad demonstrates purposeful longevity of a different kind. Remaining active in public life into his recently celebrated 100th birthday, he illustrates how conviction, stamina, and a sense of duty can sustain relevance even amidst shifting times and immense challenges.
Together, these figures remind us that centenarians and near-centenarians are not simply statistical rarities. They embody what it means to live with agency, creativity, and service until the very end, showing that legacy is less about endings and more about the continuity of purpose across a lifetime.
3. My Lived Experience: Strengths, Passion, and Community
In my own life, I see legacy being shaped at the intersection of strengths, passion, and community needs.
- Finance and Investments: Years in global finance trained me in discipline, risk management, and long-term thinking. More importantly, it showed me that financial design whether for individuals, institutions, or nations can create resilience and flexibility for decades.
- Healthcare reimagination, transformation and governance: Over the years my involvement in community healthcare gave me perspective on longevity. I saw firsthand that seniors do not only need medical care; they need agency, clarity in decision-making, and structures that preserve dignity.
- Lifelong Learning and financial literacy: In recent years, my focus has turned to lifelong learning for mid-career and senior adults. I have explored how technology particularly AI-powered skills platforms can personalise continuous education, helping individuals identify gaps, build new capabilities and stay relevant in a fast-changing world. For me, this work underscores a broader truth: legacy is not only about the wealth we leave behind, but also about the knowledge, tools and opportunities we pass forward. It is about equipping the next generation with capabilities, not just stories.
These three strands – finance, healthcare, and lifelong education now shape how I think about my 3rd transition. They are not just career milestones. They are resources for legacy.
Legacy as Practical and Personal
Yes, legacy has a practical side. I have prepared the necessary legal instruments to ensure clarity for my family. But it also has a deeply personal dimension.
For me, legacy means leaving behind:
• Values of integrity, kindness, and gratitude demonstrated not in grand speeches, but in daily actions.
• Community contributions, whether in healthcare governance, nonprofit leadership, or financial literacy.
• Examples of renewal, showing that reinvention is possible at every life stage, and that purpose does not retire when we do.
Yet legacy need not depend on lineage. For those without children, legacy can take equally enduring forms, in the ideas we share, the people we mentor, and the institutions we strengthen. It may be an intellectual legacy through writing and teaching, a civic legacy through board service or philanthropy, or a relational legacy built through compassion and mentorship. Legacy, then, is not who inherits our assets but who inherits our impact. It is the quiet continuation of our values through others colleagues, friends, or communities who carry forward something of what we stood for.
The search for meaning in legacy is not new. One of the earliest works of human literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, captures this struggle with mortality. In the story, the mighty king embarks on a quest for eternal life, only to discover that true immortality does not lie in escaping death but in the lives we shape and the impact we leave behind. As the epic concludes:
“In the end, Gilgamesh comes to understand that immortality isn’t found in escaping death, but in the lives we touch and the legacy we leave behind. It’s a timeless lesson this epic has carried through the ages: it’s not how long we live that matters, but how well we live with the time we’re given.”
This ancient wisdom echoes across millennia and reinforces the essence of the LIVeD framework: legacy is not an afterthought but a deliberate act of design. It is the continuity of values, choices, and contributions that transcend our own lifespan.
Closing Reflection: Bringing It All Together
Writing the five-part LIVeD series and journeying through the Distinguished Senior Fellowship Programme (DSFP) at NUS have been a great reset, a rare chance to pause, recalibrate, and rediscover what truly matters. In an age obsessed with acceleration, these months of reflection have offered something rarer: coherence. They reminded me that thriving in a 100-year life is not about longevity alone, but about the alignment of purpose, contribution, and renewal.
The LIVeD framework, Learning, Income health, Value in work, Enduring Health, and Defined Legacy is not a checklist to be completed, but a compass for living with intention. Each pillar builds upon the other. If the first four parts of LIVeD explore how we live, the fifth asks why.
Legacy gives meaning to the rest. Without it, learning risks becoming self-serving, income merely transactional, work a pursuit of relevance, and health a struggle against decline. With legacy in view, each becomes purposeful shaping not only our own trajectory, but the possibilities for those who follow.
Viktor Frankl once wrote,
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
Share Your Voice: LIVeD Reader Survey
