Humans of New York (featured previously here and here), one of the Sifter’s favourite photo projects/Facebook page published an incredible story/portrait earlier today on Facebook and the photo already has over 750,000 likes in just five short hours. The photo will likely surpass the one million Likes milestone later today.

From the Facebook description:

“I had a child when I was sixteen. I got kicked out of high school because of all the absences. My family and community pretty much wrote me off. But right away I got a job at a sporting goods store. Soon I was able to get a job as a receptionist at a tax company, and they gave me enough responsibilities that I learned how to do taxes. Eventually I learned enough to become an associate.
 
Then I got offered a job at a smaller company, and even though it was a pay cut, they offered me responsibility over all the books– accounts payable, accounts receivable, everything. It was less money but I wanted that experience so I took the risk. And I’m so glad I did, because six months later, the controller of that company left and I was given that position. They told me they couldn’t officially call me the controller because I didn’t have a college degree.
 
So I finished my degree 5 months ago– just to make it official! So after having a child at sixteen, I made it all the way to controller of a company, without even having a college degree. Can you believe that? Honestly, I’ve been waiting to tell that story so long that I told it to a customer service representative on the phone last week. She was nice about it and pretended to care.”