The prescription "know thyself" was conceived by ancient Greeks and perfected by modern consultants. From psychoanalysis to personal coaches to personality tests, there exist myriad ways to explore the endlessly fascinating subject that is you.  Once you understand yourself - your strengths, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies both endearing and repulsive - that self becomes easier for you to manage.    While introspection is good, however, total objectivity may actually hurt performance.  As James Surowiecki points out in his book The Wisdom of Crowds, individuals tend to overestimate their abilities, their knowledge, and their decision-making prowess. Powered by a healthy overconfidence, they take risks when faced with difficult problems. No confidence, no risks. No risks, no breakthroughs. The trick, perhaps, is to recognize your limitations but not accept them. "I yam what I yam," declares Popeye. Then he guzzles a can of spinach and wallops a large competitor.

   It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable.
Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives.
   And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.