How (Not) to Seek Perfection

I just finished rewatching Tron: Legacy, in which an Artificial Intelligence called Clu, the antagonist of the film, seeks to create "the perfect system" by destroying every part of the system that he deems imperfect. Like Clu, we ultimately seek to attain perfection, but I hope we use wiser and less drastic methods.

We are not perfect. We have many aspects which, individually, are not perfect. Yet, the way to perfect ourselves is not to destroy or eliminate those aspects, but rather to gradually improve them until no further improvements can be made. For example, our bodies aren't perfect. Rather than destroying our imperfect bodies, we should take care of them, maintain them, and improve them to the best of our abilities. For another example, our thoughts are imperfect, but instead of not thinking, we should improve our thoughts by practicing thinking that way the Savior would. In both cases, perfection is unattainable by our own efforts, but our own efforts can yield improvements, and God can get us the rest of the way, so long as we don't shoot ourselves in the foot too badly first.

We should seek perfection, but not by destroying ourselves or the parts of ourselves that we deem imperfect. Rather, we should take that over which the Lord gave us stewardship, respect it, and do what we can to gradually improve it. God gave us stewardship over ourselves and every aspect of ourselves. Rather than destroying those things, we should try to do what little we can to maintain and improve them.

Clu was right to seek perfection, but his method for doing so was, ironically, flawed.