Would you give a penny to the needy? How about a kidney? A heart? The thought of spring break brings to mind images of warm-weather parties, drunken one-night stands and the violent hangovers that follow; yet for Rachel Garneau, a student at Notre Dame, it represented a pseudo-vacation opportunity to give, and she gave and she did. This 20-year-old gave up a kidney for a complete stranger. There was an air of psychosis about her as she walked into Bernard Mitchell Hospital at the University of Chicago, calm as ever; his demeanor completely indifferent, his nonchalance rather unnerving. It's strange how "strange" we find this act of total altruism; because it's strange, everything we know from evolution, Darwinism, basic human tendencies, and even the insightful field of behavioral economics contradicts what Rachel Garneau chose to do at 5:45 am on a Tuesday: she gave until she gave done badly, and then some more. Economics, a field based on profit and gain, when considered in the context of human choices and decisions, leads to a deeper understanding of the motivation behind our actions. The fundamental theory underlying welfare economics is: “Suppose that all individuals are selfish price takers. Then a competitive equilibrium is Pareto optimal (Feldman 1987, IV, 890)”. The fusion of Adam Smith's life work was proving that human beings are selfish and that, in the end, we will succeed for our own profit. So how would you explain such a selfless concept as altruism? How could she make sense of Rachel Garneau's actions? Surprisingly, it is the culmination of pure science and economic theories that helps us unravel the mysteries of this very “divine” altruism. Research in modern cognitive neuroscience has led to a new theory about other...... middle of paper......sness, Rachel Garneau has fostered a chain reaction of kidney donation. A family member who was planning to donate but was not a match donated their kidney to someone else and this chain has saved countless lives. The end justifying the means is not really valid here, since the "means" itself is self-evidence; we should see the justification in the act itself. We are intrinsically programmed to do good, and perhaps the reason we do it is because it brings us happiness, perhaps we are, as Richard Dawkins says, a species made up of “One selfish gene”; but we are human, and if I had to choose between a person who brings nothing good to this world and a person who promotes a cycle of good both for the subject and for himself, I would never consider it a choice worth considering. Give that penny, that kidney, or just show them love. Give them a "piece of your heart".’.