Portia, I think you have the right idea. We also discuss how different jobs mean you might have to live in different parts of the country. DH and I require at least a medium-sized city for our work. Living in the country requires different career choices.
As for talking the level "down," I'm not sure that's the direction I'd go. After all, each and every one of us are in the 1% -- even the .1% -- when compared with the rest of the globe. An awareness of the differences in how people live and what they have can be very useful. But in the end "rich" isn't a word with much concrete meaning. I'd say we are very fortunate to have what we do and that it's pointless to compare against someone else.
I have a friend who, with her DH, bought a boat and sailed the oceans for 6 months while homeschooling their three kids. To me this sounds inconceivably lavish... but they were anything but rich at the time. It was just a series of choices and tradeoffs they made.
