Pursue goals and take responsibility for my own position. The only way to get what I want in life is to make it myself, but first I have to know what I want. After reading the book I went through a period of self evaluation to figure out what I wanted in life and to pick out goals, I actually went back to my roots as a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut back then, so I figured why not try, If I fall short I will still probably wind up someplace nice.

Yeah, society crumbles in the book and spoilers, the book ends with society hitting rock bottom. The book is taken by many to be like the bible of total libertarianism, and that is definitely in the book, but alot of those people also read other book literally. The book definitely made me more of a libertarian, and I agree with the vast majority of the premises of what the character John Gault said in his radio takeover address about the role of the individual and the role of government. But, in addition I still believe the govt should also provide education and health care in addition to basic regulation of market places and defense. You have to have a healthy and educated society to have it worth protecting... aside from those points I am down with the book.

I think it is a good book for motivated smart individuals living in a world where the only certain thing is death, taxes.

The book also separates good-greed and bad-greed. And I think this is a key thing of her books that many who have not read the books do not realize exist in them. Bad-greed is exploitative and is like the polar opposite of the good. I think that those that read the book then look at our society and see a lot of bad-greed going around, but there are beacons of hope.

It's a damn good book. It does brainwash you, it really does. But everything needs a good washing now and again.