"We've made America a better, stronger place for the generations that will follow," is how President Obama sees his reign in a Facebook post ahead of tonight's farewell address...

For Michelle and me, Chicago is where it all started. It's the city that showed us the power and fundamental goodness of the American people.

It's that inherent strength that brought our country through our fair share of challenges these last eight years. Because of you, we've come through them stronger. Because of you, we've held to a belief that has guided us ever since our founding – our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.

It's easy to lose sight of that in the blizzard of our minute-to-minute Washington news cycles.But America is a story told not minute to minute, but generation to generation – a story written by parents, and teachers, and veterans, and neighbors who've taken on the call of citizenship, working together, without fanfare, to form a more perfect union.

Over the course of my life, I've been reminded time and again that change can happen – that ordinary people can come together to achieve extraordinary things. And I've seen that truth up close over these last eight years.