A: I’ve heard that the Smiths will return to their hometown.

    B: Yeah, they’re tired of the rat race and are now back to farming.

    Note: The phrase refers to any exhausting, unremitting, and usually competitive activity or routine, especially a pressured urban working life spent trying to get ahead with little time left for leisure or contemplation. This is often used in reference to work, particularly excessive or competitive work. In general terms, if one works too much, one is in the rat race. We aren’t sure about the exact origin of the phrase rat race, although it seems to have started in the United States in the 1930s. It conjures up the image of lab rats racing through a maze to get the “cheese” much like society racing to get ahead financially.