Rats don’t race, we do !

“The trouble with the rat race is that, even if you win, you’re still a rat” (Lily Tomlin)

All this is unfair to rats: as a biologist, I can assure you that, in normal and natural life, rats do not race. We do, or at least some of us do! A ‘rat race’ is a term used for an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit. It conjures up the image of the futile efforts of rats in a laboratory trying to escape whilst running around a maze or in a wheel. They make lots of noise bumping into each other, but ultimately go nowhere, i.e. achieve nothing, either collectively or individually. Like people, it seems, in some modern settings.

The ‘rat race’ is a term often used to describe competition at work, in schools and universities, business, commerce and industry, show-biz and “professional” sports, politics and research, even amongst NGOs and religious sects and, of course, in life in general. If one is constantly competing for everything, with “beating the adversary” (at any cost?) as the main aim, one is in the ‘rat race’.

...rats in The Rat Race...I don't think so...