I dunno, the worrying about outward appearances seems absurd to me, but maybe that's just because I'm having trouble figuring out what my analogy would be. With the drop of income from $8 million to $2 million a year, though, I can sort of understand the worries. Like, I do consider $2 million a year to be an absurd income that no-one should make, but at the same time I'm realizing more and more just how psychologically important "what you're used to" is. I think everyone, no matter how much they make, would think of a 75% decrease in income as a disaster, and everyone would think of a doubling of income as having it made - that is, until they get used to their new lifestyle.