Life, Inexorably

I have noticed that most everyone I know feels that if they were given the opportunity to go back in their lives, there is at least one thing they would do differently. And they feel that alteration would improve their present state. When I think about my own past, there are several things I wish I could change or erase completely. But in the grand scheme of things, I'm not so sure it would alter my present reality so much. Being that even if you go back and make changes, you are still you. If you were to alter an event in your life, it would inevitably affect subsequent events. This would put you in situations you had not previously been in. And since this would be your first encounter with these events, you are likely to make decisions you will later be unsatisfied with. I think that you being who you are, would make similar decisions to the ones you have made before. And it is highly probable these new life events would lead you to the same or a very similar situation to the one you are already in.
I'm not entirely sure if I believe there is some sort of predetermined path for our lives. But I do believe our patterns of behavior are likely to bring us face to face with the same issues. In the same way we as a society believe events in history should have been handled differently, Yet repeatedly, we face the same issues we have faced throughout history. They may manifest in a different form, but they are essentially the same.