Here's the fourteenth in the series of excellent blogs by Lex covering the adjectives on the 20 Moodscope cards. Please don't forget we'd love you to add any ideas, tips, insights or advice you may have that you'd like to share with other Moodscope members that might be of help. Many thanks. Caroline.

Today it's the turn of the "Attentive" card. Moodscope defines this as: "paying close attention".

If I had a Fairy Godmother (and perhaps I do), her most often said words to me would be, "Dearest, where is your attention?" This is because she knows about the magic of attention. I remember her saying to me over and over again as a child, "Whatever gets your attention, gets you!"

It took me a long time to understand this, but it's true. Wherever my attention would go would consume my thoughts. My thoughts would grow around my attention as if the attention was the seed.

This is most obviously so when suffering a minor cold. I found that if I shifted my attention to a comedy film, I would forget all about the runny nose for 90 minutes. When it was over, my attention would shift back to my symptoms and I would suffer as only a man can suffer!

This is meant to be a positive card for Moodscope. It's about being switched 'in' to the World, not switched 'off' like you can be when depressed. But I think it's a three-way switch: 0 = Attention Off; 1 = Attention on the Positive; 2 = Attention on the Negative.

To switch my attention strongly, I use a click of my fingers. A left click (sounds like a mouse) wakes me up to the fact that I've been drifting into negative attention. I then do a right click to command myself to find something positive to attend to. One of the joys of being human is that you can only 'attend' to one thing at a time. So this works for me.

Now, when my Fairy Godmother asks me where my attention is, I say boldly with a click: "On the positive!"