In a new podcast interview, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said that imbalance leads to innovation.

Tyson joined FiveThirtyEight’s ‘What’s the Point’ podcast with Jody Avirgan to talk about his work and how big data is changing the field of astronomy.

He said, “There is the psychological discomfort knowing you should be doing something else. And we presume that balance is a good thing. When something is out of balance you can get quite innovative in your attempts to resolve that fact”.

Tyson mentioned that feeling out of balance is part of the thrill of life, which leads people to accomplish great things.

According to him, people don’t go to amusement park roller coaster and say that they want to be balanced. They want to be as unbalanced as possible as that’s the thrill ride.

Tyson noted that he wrestled while taking college classes and discovering new academic interests. He mentioned that he never struck a balance between his two different worlds and that very imbalance led him to discover new talents and launch new investigations.

The cosmos advised that rather than collapsing under that discomfort, we should embrace it and try to enjoy the ride. The pressure between balancing different tasks would serve as the motivation to try truly incredible things.

Besides from working as an astrophysicist, Tyson’s titles include author, TV host, and meme-spawner. He currently hosts Star Talk on the National Geographic Channel and is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of National History in New York.