SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
This "school of hard knocks" takes on another dimension in light of Joseph's fore-running prototype of Jesus, and this is that his "thirteen years of hard knocks" corresponds to Jesus' carrying His cross on the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha's Hill of the skull...and to Jesus' declaring that each of us "has a cross to bear" en-route to our destiny or New Birth. Joseph carried his cross to become a nation and save a civilization.
God used Joseph to birth and preserve His promise to Abraham that his seed would be a "blessing to all the nations of the earth." There was no way for Joseph to envision all of this in his journey from Pit to Prison to Palace.