Brainstorming 2020 Resolutions

List of Activities and Practices That Would Help Me Draw Closer to God:

Morning and Evening Prayers - Make communing with God the first and last thing you do each day.

Daily Scripture Study - When? Mornings would be good for now, less so when Christmas break ends. Maybe I could read scriptures on my phone while I'm on the bus? That should work.

Temple Worship - Maintain the practice of going to the Temple with Mom every week (some exceptions allowable eg. illness, urgent service opportunities).

Service - Serving family counts. Is it enough, or should I set a specific goal to do more? What should I count as "service"? Would giving blood count?

Hymns - I'll continue to participate in Choir, but I could use more good music in my life. I should start playing the piano again, so long as it doesn't annoy people.

Meditation - Is that different from prayer? Should it be? I think so. Prayer involves communicating with God, while meditation allows a person to clear their mind. Stilling and centering one's thoughts is different than direction them toward God.

D&D - Play Good characters only. Preferably Fighters, Clerics, and Paladins. That would mean changing Grixis from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good, but I think I can justify that. He'd still be a Rogue-ish Wizard, though. He's far from being a Paladin, but he can still be a good person. I can relate to that.

Be a Paladin - How? Paladins are Lawful Good knights who use divine magic to fight against evil. I'm doing okay on Good, my Lawfulness could use some work. Divine magic = the Priesthood. I'm not sure how I feel about fighting against evil. I can certainly fight against the evil in myself, sure. But should I try to fight the evil in the world? In what way? I suppose I could speak out against evil, but I would have to carefully choose what evil to speak against. It'd have to be something that I feel strongly about and that is at least somewhat socially acceptable on a left-leaning campus. I suppose I could fight poverty.

I'm over-complicating this. I have several ideas. What specific goals do I want to set? I'll keep doing what I'm already doing, but what do I want to focus on adding? What would help me the most?

Let's focus on Prayer, Hymns, and Meditation. They're similar enough in purpose and in practice that I think I can focus on all three at once. Prayer and Meditation can blend into each other, and Hymns can be used during Meditation. D&C 25:12 says that "the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me," so there's that.

Okay, I have my focus. What, specifically, should I set as goals? We've already established the goal of daily morning and evening prayers. Maybe I should include mid-day, Tevye-esque, "conversational" prayers. Would daily meditation and hymn-singing be too often? My gut says 'no,' but when would I do them? I can sing hymns basically whenever. Maybe I'll incorporate that into my commute. I should also play the piano, maybe when I get home from work? I'll ask Mom if she'd be okay with that. But when should I meditate? When I get home, maybe? It should be at some time when I can be somewhere I can avoid distractions. Pulling that off daily might be asking too much. I might be able to do it at the institute, but it'll be tough to nail down an exact time for it. Guaranteed, I can meditate at least weekly. Maybe that'll suffice if I can't manage daily.

So, here's what I've got so far:
Daily morning and evening prayers
Mid-day, Tevye-esque, "conversational" prayers
Sing hymns while walking from place to place.
Practice Piano most weekdays (Maybe)
Meditate at least weekly, at the Temple, if not daily at Home or at Institute.

I suppose I could make some kind of checklist out of that, and if I wanted to get really serious about these goals, I probably would. Maybe it'll suffice to print this list of goals and keep the list somewhere where I'll see it. The bottom line for today is that I've set these goals. Later, I'll decide how I'll remind myself to keep them.