Living below your means is separated from your standard of living.
In a better world everyone should be able to live well without having to sacrifice as much.
Somehow we've convinced ourselves that it's always the individual's fault when they have to live with a worse standard of living to maybe retire one day.
I agree with you regarding the means of living but that's not what I said.
Accepting that you will have to work until you die is lowering your standard of living.
So is accepting that any emergency can bankrupt you or that you will never be able to travel, and so on.
For some reason people are conflating standards of living with irresponsible spending.
Being stuck on an expenses ~= income treadmill is what sucks.