This is a great question. The quote means that if you don't learn from your mistakes, and truly examine your choices and experiences, you will be doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. In other words, little meaning will come from just existing. Lessons must be learned from things that happen, how you react to them, and your ability to apply those lessons to future events.
With Oedipus, he certainly makes some mistakes. In his efforts to avoid allowing the prophecy come true, he moves away from home so that he is far from the people he thinks are his parents. I'm sure he was upset with himself later for not just going to the people with whom he had lived his whole life and asked the simple question, "Hey, are you my real mom and dad? Where did I come from, and who am I really?"
Instead, he assumed they were his biological parents, and by moving away from "home" he sets himself up to kill his father and marry his mother--the biological ones. For which, he blinds himself as punishment and wanders around for years.
Hope this helps!
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