Being brought to the brink of your limits makes you so desperate for respite, the human ego panics and reacts in the ways it is familiar with. Someone who thrives on egoic control and rage can lose their mental faculties and react with primal urges. Someone with extreme ability to endure can break and find their ego shattered in the face of merciless adversity. Whatever path one chooses only reflects the choices the ego is still able to reach for. When drained dry, you finally reach for a drop of water from a source you may have otherwise found yourself ignorant of. It is the breaking of your self that then illuminates you with light and love.
On a more mundane level, the lack of philosophical awareness blinds you to the purpose of suffering and challenging circumstances. Becoming aware of the purpose is in itself a force that adds to the willpower to be able to see through these opportunities of evolution.