What we mean is that if we could go back to some former time, with our memories from the present time, we would do things differently. However, we cannot do that. If we were somehow able to go back to the particular former time, but with our memories as they were when we first encountered that time, we would almost certainly do exactly the same again. If we think back honestly to the various turning points or key decisions in our lives, we usually find that it was a matter of good luck if things turned out well or bad luck if they did not. In either case we really had very little to do with it.
Some people think that they owe their good fortune to their own wise decisions.
If they think back truly and honestly they will usually find that it was simply good luck. The idea of eternal recurrence is very old. It predates the ideas of reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism but was the original teaching on the subject. The present ideas of reincarnation are a misunderstanding of the original teaching, being an attempt by the translators to put the ideas into a context acceptable to the religious or philosophical views of the time. According to eternal recurrence, every separately existing thing, whether an object or a person, has its own separate time, and this time repeats itself eternally.