Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Imbalance Leads To Innovation

Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks people should follow John F. Kennedy’s advice and welcome challenges. In a new podcast interview, the astrophysicist and television host said work-life balance isn’t all it is cracked up to be. He said that the psychological strain of knowing you should do or be somewhere else — in other words, feeling out of balance — leads to innovation.

“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.”

Time quoted Tyson, who made the comments as part of the FiveThirtyEight podcast.

Feeling out of balance is part of the thrill of life, Tyson said, and part of what leads people to accomplish great things.

“You don’t go to the amusement park roller coaster and say ‘I want to be balanced.’ No, you want to be as unbalanced as possible, because that’s the thrill ride.

“I’m reminded of John Kennedy’s famous comment about the moon, we choose to do these things, we choose to go to the moon not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. And I think not enough people choose to embrace the hard.”

In addition to his media appearances — he’s hosted Cosmos and currently hosts Star Talk on the National Geographic Channel — Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of National History in New York.

He told FiveThirtyEight that the Planetarium uses real data to create space shows, not the mock-ups that were on display in the past.

“We gather data from around the world from telescopes and make them coherent with one another…. Now when we write space shows and when I take you through the galaxy or out to the universe, we use real data for that. The Hayden planetarium used to have an artist’s studio where pictures were drawn and painted and collaged. Now it’s all on the computer. We’re using real data for that.”

When Tyson is not fulfilling his many jobs, or trying not to achieve work-life balance, he’s sending out humorous tweets to his nearly four million followers.

In 5-billion yrs the Sun will expand & engulf our orbit as the charred ember that was once Earth vaporizes. Have a nice day.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 16, 2015

Just an FYI: Stepping on an Ant is equivalent to a creature 10,000 times more massive than a Blue Whale stepping on you.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) June 14, 2015

The next episode of Star Talk airs Tuesday on the National Geographic Channel.

[Photo by Jemal Countess / Getty Images Entertainment]