Try this for now:
Your perceptions and desires are products of conditioning and other sentient experience you have acquired up to this point in life. You can change the contents of your mind, and you can shape your mind to be pro-social, rational, and smarter, too. (That task is part of what is called mental development and, in my opinion, requires a long-term commitment to high quality self-education about the natural world, one’s place in nature, and the history of the evolution of the real world including the life on it.)
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
Consciousness is a function of a cognitive neural network processing both sensory data and memory. Sentient experience can be subjectively deconstructed into four foundations of mindfulness:
1. Mindfulness of body.
2. Mindfulness of sensation as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral (physical sensation).
3. Mindfulness of state of mind (attitude, emotion).
4. Mindfulness of content of mind (ideas, learned skills, memory, mental images, beliefs).
For about 20 minutes twice a day:
Sit in a comfortable position, legs crossed and back erect if possible, and with as little noise and distraction as possible. Focus your mind only on your breathing, counting mentally “1 in, 1 out, 2 in, 2 out, 3 in …” and so on for a cycle of four or five breaths. Try to calm your breathing as you do this.
As you do this there will be the usual background of a continuous stream of thoughts, random or specific ideas, and images, feelings that come and go. Any of these can distract you, but you can just ignore them. There is no need to suppress any of it; your brain normally processes information via random association or cognitive models you have acquired either on purpose or by random experience. These are the things that usually drive your perceptions and behavior, even your dreams.