RETURNING from Lochailort in the Highlands the day after Boxing Day, I stood on a very cold, very empty railway platform, waiting on a train back to Glasgow. A stag stared at me from a snow-covered hill on the other side of the single-line track. Pristine silence, apart from the sound of lightly crunching snow underfoot. The wait was a bit longer than expected, but I reassured myself that a hot cup of railway tea would soon warm me up. The train arrived and I got on just at the carriage where the hot drinks trolley was primed and ready to go. I swear I saw steam wafting out of those big flasks. I’d have my frozen hands wrapped around a cuppa any moment now.

The tea never came. "Maybe at Fort William," said an elderly woman who had just retrieved another cold-busting cardigan and a furry hat from her suitcase. “They’ll bring the trolley when more folk get on.” I nodded but could feel the doubt setting in. Sitting across from us was a man in his 70s, a weather-beaten climbing type in a hand-knitted bobble hat. “In yer dreams,” he said. “They’ll no shift that trolley between here and Queen Street. When ye really need something, it never comes to ye.”

He seemed to know what he was talking about, but I was caught between the optimism of the old (and now shivering) woman in front of me, and the assured pessimism of Mr Bobble Hat. He seemed, after all, sharper and fitter than me and the elderly woman put together. Our situation was compounded when the guard, when asked if he could put the heating on as we were all very cold, replied: “This train’s been lying in Mallaig since Christmas Eve. It takes a day to warm up. There’ll be no heat until the run back up from Glasgow.”

I got up and took another jumper and heavy-duty socks from my suitcase. “Better just hunker down; another four hours to go,” I thought. No point in protesting. Mr Bobble Hat sat chuckling to himself, apparently rather pleased that his curmudgeonly predictions were quickly being realised. The old lady opposite me said: “Maybe at Crianlarich”, and promptly nodded off. I gazed out of the window at the magnificent landscape and wondered about her childlike optimism and Bobble Hat’s defensive pessimism.

Last week, Ipsos Mori published the results of a worldwide survey called The Perils Of Perception. Conducted across 38 countries, it asked participants to guesstimate percentages on key issues such as levels of teen pregnancy, drug use, suicide, terrorism, smartphone ownership, belief in heaven and hell, murder and immigration. Generally speaking, the results show that most of us over-estimate how bad things are in our society and underestimate rates of improvement.

The disparity between our perception and reality can be huge. For example, most people believe that Russia is the booziest nation on the planet, with Poland, Australia and the UK being perceived as close runners-up. Of the 1000 people surveyed, hardly any mentioned Belgium as the highest-consuming alcohol nation (outstripping all the others at an average intake of 126 litres of alcohol per person per year). When it comes to murder, which in fact has declined globally by 29 per cent, 46 per cent of people believe that it has increased significantly since the year 2000. Similarly with teen births, most people across all countries surveyed believe that there’s been a huge increase. Interestingly, Canada has the most distorted view on the prevalence of teen births, estimating that one in five teenage girls have babies. In reality, only 0.9 per cent of Canadian women aged between 15-19 actually gave birth.

Why, given the ubiquitous mantra of the power of positive thinking, do we tend towards negative perceptions? Partly, it’s a defensive mechanism that has evolved to help us survive. If we are anxious and anticipate threat, we are more primed to transform our anxiety into action. And if we don’t hope too much – like Bobble Hat man – and expect the worst, then maybe we won’t be disappointed.

I can’t help thinking that on the scale of things, the stark imperiousness of Rannoch Moor and the seemingly giant mass of Ben Dorain, miniaturised the niggling negativities of a train without heat and without tea. To travel lucidly and see things as they really are, brings a calm sense of scale to all the trouble and strife we perceive around us. Blue sky or darkening sky, there is still beauty. The rest is in the eye of the beholder.