Time & Perspective Quote by Rita Coolidge

Opportunity, in Rita Coolidge's hands, isn't a shining doorway or a mythic moment of destiny. It's a half-funny, half-exhausted image of modern life: the knock comes, but you're living behind layers of self-protection, logistics, and low-grade paranoia. The chain, bolt, two locks, and burglar alarm read like a catalog of hard-earned caution. This isn't just about procrastination; it's about how experience teaches you to fortify yourself, and how those fortifications quietly become a lifestyle.

The line works because it turns a motivational cliche into a domestic farce. "Opportunity knocks" is supposed to be reassuring; Coolidge makes it sound like a nuisance delivery you can't receive because you've booby-trapped your own front door. The comedy isn't decorative. It's a pressure valve for a real cultural truth: we are trained to treat the outside world as risk, and then we're surprised when risk includes missing out.

As a musician who came up in an industry built on timing, gatekeepers, and the sudden swing of taste, Coolidge is also smuggling in professional wisdom. Chances are fleeting; the cost of being perpetually "secure" is sluggishness. The subtext lands with particular bite for anyone who's ever waited for perfect readiness: by the time you've made yourself safe enough to say yes, the moment has already found someone less prepared but more available.