For a professional it also isn't an embarrassment as he may not be a professional chess player who gains his bread, but a professional manager, coach, writer (who can help people improve up to expert, for example) - Dan Heisman comes to mind, who is only NM and certainly not way above 2200 FIDE level. Where's the embarrassment? I find him very valuable, even brilliant.
Someone who's 2200 won't make big money out of tournament chess. If he still manages to make a reasonable living from chess that's quite something.
Making a living off of what you love is great in any case. Not everybody does that.
In the strictest sense, yes, those who make money off of their ability are pros, and personally I have a lot of respect for those masters who I've gotten a lot of good advice (Heisman, chess.com, youtube people, etc). They're very good players who could certainly beat me.
But on the subject of rating goals and achievements, a professional player, with professional goals as a player (not a teacher or commentator, or anything else), would hopefully only be rated 2200 once (on his way up).
<Piphilogist>
Thanks for your comment :-)
Maybe there's something wrong with me... I'm probably worth around 2050 FIDE (although I don't have the rating - I have just three FIDE rated games from several years ago where I scored two wins and one loss against opposition which averages at 1994) and still feel like a good player... :-)
I guess there is... as I've been feeling that way also when I was way worse...
As long as I keep enjoying chess and learn new stuff I guess my problem isn't that big though...
(btw I have some friends who are FIDE masters and up. One FIDE master in particular, who comes to mind - he doesn't think that he can compete against the top level, and I think he's right. I also hand him a more-than-occasional defeat... often when we analyze together I see moves and ideas before he does - of course less than 50% of the time... he's the master and is really much stronger than me)
Levels are relative. If I didn't feel like a strong and deep player (and we all do, you can do nothing against it) I would never make it from around 1200 to my current level - it's the fuel that drives me up. I'm good - and then I want to get better.