Good article. I support your mindset that bilingual or multilingual life is easier. When you speak first language it's easy. With a second one you have to learn how to turn a switch in your head. You don't only listen and speak but also think in a second language. Or in a third for that matter. I live in a small country on a crossing of 4 linguistic groups. Slavic, Romance, Germanic and Finno-Ugric. We have our own official language, quite hard to learn, ranking in the top 25. Because wherever you live you have a border closer than 50 km away - so most of the population is bilingual. And most of the population also speaks fairly mid english.
Not that we asked for it, but for a bit more than 2 mio people this is quite an achievement :)
Haa, I gave you quite a few information. Would you know which country I am talking about?