Complete vs Finished

I recall moments from primary school when we used to be in this rush in class, as to see who would accomplish the given classwork first and then raise our hands excitedly and go “Ma’am finished!” No, I did not leave the comma out by accident. I don’t think we even had time for that. We just literally went “Ma’am finished!” That, of course, earned us a good speech from our teacher who always emphasized on the incorrect use of the phrase. But then again, we never learnt; not at the time, at least.

It reminds me of another time when the teacher asked “Have you completed your homework?”

My point here: the sole purpose in both of these cases were the accomplishment of the given task. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how complete and finished have been used synonymously, and sometimes interchangeably?

So are they the same? Well, not really. I wouldn’t say so.

I’m going to be honest here, I googled what would come up if I put complete vs finished. This is what came up: The word complete is used in the sense of 'entire' or 'total'. On the other hand, the word finish is usually used in the sense of 'conclude' or 'end'. This is the main difference between the two words.

The way I see it: complete is more of the whole picture; becoming whole, wholesome, every part coming together. Finish is more of just getting it together or the end of something. While complete could refer to something more positively, finished could go both ways: positively or negatively, just the end of something. Let me put it this way: while a circle gets complete, a line finishes. Maybe this is why we always say it is the finish line.

If God forbade, your life were to end tomorrow, would you say that life has been complete, or your life is finishing? If you think that way, it actually depends on the perspective, does it not?